[ExI] Watson on NOVA

[Richard Loosemore]

Kelly Anderson wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 6:24 AM, Richard Loosemore <rpwl at lightlink.com> wrote:
>> Kelly Anderson wrote:
>> :-)
>>
>> Well, first off, don't get me wrong, because I say all this with a smile.
>>  When I went to the AGI-09 conference, there was one guy there (Ed Porter)
>> who had spent many hours getting mad at me online, and he was eager to find
>> me in person.  He spent the first couple of days failing to locate me in a
>> gathering of only 100 people, all of whom were wearing name badges, because
>> he was looking for some kind of mad, sullen, angry grump.  The fact that I
>> was not old, and was smiling, talking and laughing all the time meant that
>> he didn't even bother to look at my name badge.  We got along just great for
>> the rest of the conference.  ;-)
> 
> I'm glad to hear you aren't grumpy in person... but you do come off
> that way online.. :-)

One further thought.  I think I figured out the reason for your "mad 
scientist" remark, and I feel I should briefly comment on that.

I did make a statement, earlier in the discussion, about being one of 
the few people actually in a position to build a real AGI.  I should 
clarify:  this was not really a bragging exercise (well, okay, a 
little), but a comment about the nature of AI research and the 
particular point in history where I think we are at the moment.  There 
is nothing special about me, personally, there is just a peculiar fact 
about the kind of people doing AI research, and the particular obstacle 
that I believe is holding up that research at the moment.  My comment 
was an expression of my belief that real progress will depend on an 
understanding of the complex systems problem -- but because of an 
accident of academic dynamics, there happen to be very few people in the 
world at the moment who understand that problem.  Give me a hundred 
smart, receptive minds right now, and three years to train 'em up, and 
there could be a hundred people who could build an AGI (and probably 
better than I could).

So, just to say, don't interpret the previous comment to be too much of 
a mad scientist comment ;-)


Richard Loosemore