Having a kid is an achievement for sure, but it's not what this forum is about.
The connection between artificial intelligence and natural intelligence seems to escape many who post here. As an engineer, you would be a fool to ignore the natural experiments all around you in natural intelligence as you contemplate your artificial efforts.
Further, the site is set on adjusting human brains to be more rational. Of course this has to do with how we raise children. There is nothing trivial or boring or irrelevant to studies of friendly artificial intelligence in observations of how a baby turns in to a person under the influence of a tremendous amount of complex interaction with other persons.
Although it does seem to be the case that it would be helpful for the purpose of creating an artificial intelligence to consider how natural intelligence works, I don't think this is something we're in a shortage of here on LW. You say the connection between artificial and natural intelligence seems to escape many who post here, yet I see people talking about how human reasoning works much more often than I see people talk about how AI works, and when people discuss one, it's not uncommon for them to draw analogies from the other.
This site is of course abo...
I've always been more of a theoretician, but it's important to try one's hand at practical problems from time to time. In that vein, I've decided to try three simultaneous experiments on major Less Wrong themes. I will aim to acquire something to protect, I will practice training a seed intelligence, and I will become more familiar with many consequences of evolutionary psychology.
In the spirit of efficiency I'll combine all these experiments into one:
She's never seen Star Wars or Doctor Who.
She's never seen David Attenborough or read J. L. Borges.
She's never had a philosophical debate.
She's never been skiing.
Never had sex, never been hugged or even been licked by a dog!
She has so much to look forwards to...
(Though she'll be very boring for several months yet!)