From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Tue Mar 23 1999 - 21:34:38 MST
[ Replies disputing my ultimate goals: Change the subject line to "X:
What should be done". Your own list of things to do: Insert your own
last name. If nobody could get started on *each* project you list
"NOW", change the subject line to "LATER". PLEASE follow these rules. ]
Concrete: The primary thing that needs doing, ASAPractical, is a
foundation intended to turn the design in "Coding a Transhuman AI" into
code. A few $M in seed money could create a foundation with a fairly
respectable front, that could hire (1) me (and/or a few other
competents) to finish the design and start turning it into something
codeable, or more likely spend the next two years creating
infrastructure; (2) someone to go around asking the major Silicon
Tycoons for funding; (3) an OpenSource website to recruit the
Manhattan-Project-like number of programmers needed.
Immediate: I'd like to see someone sponsor a Singularitarian site,
containing a mailing list and a site that would be restricted, and for
immediate choices only rather than ideology, where business issues could
be discussed and personal finances revealed. The List of
Singularitarians. If nobody volunteers the space needed by Sunday, I'll
create the restricted mailing list at OneList.
Business: I believe we do have some high-financial-percentile folks
reading this list. I would like to see you post, ANONYMOUSLY, a list of
what you're interested in funding (Business ideas from Extropians?
Extropian business ideas? Foundations?); what order-of-magnitude you're
thinking about committing to each; topics you'd like to see discussion
of; and so on. This prevents you from being inundated with moronic
personal solicitations. Pick your favorite trustworthy Extropian to act
as remailer.
General: I'd like to see a general Singularity Foundation, along the
lines of the Extropy Institute, to do things like: Coordinate the
"singularitarian" list mentioned above; provide a target for donations;
and (if it got the funding) move up to things like awards, events, or
even investing.
Possibilities: Seek out reporters who have too-small pieces of the
truth and enlighten them. (I don't know of any case of this succeeding,
although I did wind up providing the name for Ashley Dunn's "Mind and
Machine" column.)
Out: The neurohacking stuff will be prohibited by the FDA. It's out as
a practical project, good only for personal publicity if I can verify
the hypothesis with an fMRI. Nanotechnology is all too practical.
Airline tickets and hotel fare to buttonhole the guys at Zyvex and
scream at them for a while about the warlike nature of humanity might be
worth doing.
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://pobox.com/~sentience/AI_design.temp.html
http://pobox.com/~sentience/singul_arity.html
Disclaimer: Unless otherwise specified, I'm not telling you
everything I think I know.
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