Everybody on all sides of this discussion is a suspect of a bullshit trader or a bullshit producer.
That includes me, you, Vinge, Kurzweill, Jürgen S., Ben Goertzel - everybody is a suspect. Including the investigators from any side.
Now, I'll clear my position. The whole AI business is an Edisonian, not an Einsteinian project. I don't see a need for some enormous scientific breakthroughs before it can be done. No, to me it looks like - we have Maxwell equations for some time now, can we build an electric lamp?
Edison is just one among many, who is claiming it is almost done in his lab. It is not certain what's the real situation in the Menlo Park. The fact that an apprentice who left Edison is saying that there is no hope for a light bulb is not very informative. As it is not, that another apprentice still working there, is euphoric. It doesn't matter even what the Royal Queen Science Society back in old England has to say. Or a simple peasant.
You just can't meta judge very productively.
But you can judge is it possible to have an object as an electric driven lamp? Or can you build a nuclear fusion reactor? Or can you built an intelligent program?
If it is possible, how hard is to actually build one of those? May takes a long time, even if it is. May take a short time, if it is.
The only real question is - can it be done and if yes - how? If no, also good. It just isn't.
But you have to stay on topic, not meta topic, I think.
No, to me it looks like - we have Maxwell equations for some time now, can we build an electric lamp?
To me it looks like that AGI researchers are simply rubbing amber with fur while claiming that they are on the verge of building a full-scale electricity-producing fusion power plant.
But you can judge is it possible to have an object as an electric driven lamp?
It is possible to create a Matrix style virtual reality. It is possible to create antimatter weapons. That doesn't mean that it is feasible. It also says nothing about timeframes.
...The only re
...has finally been published.
Contents:
The issue consists of responses to Chalmers (2010). Future volumes will contain additional articles from Shulman & Bostrom, Igor Aleksander, Richard Brown, Ray Kurzweil, Pamela McCorduck, Chris Nunn, Arkady Plotnitsky, Jesse Prinz, Susan Schneider, Murray Shanahan, Burt Voorhees, and a response from Chalmers.
McDermott's chapter should be supplemented with this, which he says he didn't have space for in his JCS article.