Ben Goertzel on the Future of AI, Best of TWT

[This show first aired March 20, 2008.]

Ben Goertzel joins Stephen Gordon and PJ Manney for a discussion of the future of AI.

Dr. Ben Goertzel is the CEO/CSO of Novemente LLC. He's been working 20+ yrs in AI R&D and commercialization. He is a former CTO of 120+ employee, thinking machine company, Webmind. He earned his PhD in mathematics from Temple University. He has held several university positions in mathematics, computer science, and psychology in the US, New Zealand and Australia. He is the author of 70+ research papers, journalistic articles, and eight scholarly books dealing with topics in cognitive sciences and futurism.

He is the principle architect of the Novamente Cognition Engine. And he is the Director of Research for the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

He came to us fresh off the first annual AGI conference at the University of Memphis which he was instrumental in organizing.

The importance of Friendly AI.
Goertzel believes that empathy involves the ability to simulate other minds. His thought is that if an AI is given the capacity to do this that is greater-than-human, then it will be more empathetic-than-human - a super friendly AI.
Goertzel wisely refrained from making any absolute predictions on the arrival of human-level AGI. He did state that if the field had unlimited money he wouldn't be surprised if it could be done in 5 years. With limited funding it might take 20 years.
If you haven't seen it, don't miss the 2001 BBC documentary Predicting AI's Future.