From: "bengoertzel@gmail.eom on behalf of Ben Goertzel <a" I
To:JeffirvEpMeintevaeation@vnailemn>
Subject: Re: Cassio's reaction
Date:Wed,20Jan2010 13:31:37+0000
>If i were you, i would take more seriously , why there is
» so little support for the idea. it disturbs me„ i believe in you. i can't
» figure out why i am in the minority
Your question reminds me of when i was 12 years old and I told a camp counselor I was
unpopular at school, and he asked me why.
I said it was because I was too smart, and he said that wasn't the reason, since he knew
other smart kids who were popular.
I said then I didn't really know the reason... but probably it was because I was so different
from them, and people don't like things that are different.
In this case I also don't really know the reason why mainstream AI guys don't **love** my AI
approach, but "merely" find it interesting and plausible.
But I suspect the reason is that they don't fully understand my approach -- because the core
ideas are alien to their way of thinking.
I.e., because it's different.
The reason my approach hasn't been funded by the US NSF or DARPA is that mainstream AI guys
can't understand or appreciate it, since their way of thinking is different.
Now, at your request, I approached some mainstream AI guys -- choosing nice and progressive-
minded people, but still mainstream AI people -- and got evaluations, and they could only
**partially** understand and appreciate it.... Not surprising.
The mainstream-AI memeplex preserves its own ideas and shuts out everything else.. from
government funding and it now appears likely, also from private funding ;-p
Maybe the reason YOU can appreciate my ideas is that you are NOT biased by having a fucked-up
point of view on AI like the main stream of AI researchers...
It's like Pei Wang said
90% of AI researchers don't believe strong AI is feasible in the near term
Of the 10% who do believe it's feasible 90% of them have a badly wrong conceptual approach
The remaining 1% can't get funding, because the other 99% control the money
And so it goes...
-- ben
EFTA00765200