[extropy-chat] RE: [wta-talk] SIAI seeking seed AI programmer candidates

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 01, 2004 at 01:11:55PM -0700, Adrian
> Tymes wrote:
> > ...but this answer simply does NOT suffice.  I
> suspect
> > the same is true for any programmer of my caliber
> or
> > higher, which only reinforces things.  (Creating
> > Friendly AI by myself?  Unlikely, at best. 
> Creating
> > Friendly AI with a lot of help of my caliber? 
> That's
> > starting to become possible.)
> 
> With programmers alone it's hard even to tie your
> own shoelaces.
> What of hardware people? Numerics people?
> Neuroscientists, physicists?
> 
> Writing code is a negligible part of the project.

I used "programmer" as shorthand.  I know neuroscience
and hardware, as well, and of course any (decent)
programmer knows math.  But we know an AI will require
new software to be written (i.e., programming); it is
not as easy to prove that new hardware, or new
statistical methods, will have to be custom developed
for this project.  (Possible, perhaps.  Easy, no,
especially when one considers that "custom developed"
rules out hiring people to continue implementing
Moore's Law when other companies are already doing so
regardless of our actions.)