Ben Goertzel

SIAI Director of Research & Novamente CEO

Nine Years to a Positive Singularity
27 minutes, 12.5mb, recorded 2007-09-08
Ben Goertzel

Dr. Geortzel makes clear that the goal of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) – a real thinking machine that can achieve a variety of complex goals, and can understand what it is, that it is, and that there are other beings that it can interact with – differs significantly from typical narrow AI application systems. AGI needs to be able understand what it has learned in one context and transfer it to another context.

How do you create an AGI? Goertzel considers one possible path to AGI is through the use of virtual worlds as incubators for nascent artificial intelligence systems. This frees developers from the constant challenges presented by sensors and actuators in the physical world, but more importantly, virtual worlds offer an environment for large-scale collaboration among AI researchers.


Dr. Ben Goertzel is SIAI Director of Research, responsible for overseeing the direction of the Institute's research division. He has over 70 publications, concentrating on cognitive science and AI, including Chaotic Logic, Creating Internet Intelligence, Artificial General Intelligence (edited with Cassio Pennachin), and Hidden Pattern. He is chief science officer and acting CEO of Novamente, a software company aimed at creating applications in the area of natural language question-answering. He also oversees Biomind, an AI and bioinformatics firm that licenses software for bioinformatics data analysis to the NIH's National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases and CDC. Previously, he was founder and CTO of Webmind, a 120+ employee thinking-machine company. He has a Ph.D. in mathematics from Temple University, and has held several university positions in mathematics, computer science, and psychology, in the US, New Zealand, and Australia.

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