Ben Goertzel - Regulating AGI May Do More Harm Than Good (AGI Destinations Series, Episode 3)

This is an interview with Ben Goertzel, CEO of SingularityNET, and AGI researcher for many decades.
This is the third episode in a 5-part series about "AGI Destinations" - where we unpack the preferable and non-preferable futures humanity might strive towards in the years ahead.
This episode referred to the following other essays and resources:
-- The Intelligence Trajectory Political Matrix: danfaggella.com/itpm
-- The SDGs of Strong AGI: emerj.com/ai-power/sdgs-of-ai/
Read more from Ben on X: / bengoertzel
I often recommend Ben's "Cosmist Manifesto" as a relatively frank and honest take on posthuman / AGI futures: www.amazon.com/Cosmist-Manife...
...
There three main questions we'll be covering on the Trajectory:
1. Who are the power players in AGI and what are their incentives?
2. What kind of posthuman future are we moving towards, or should we be moving towards?
3. What should we do about it?
If this sounds like it's up your alley, I'm glad to have you here.
Connect:
danfaggella.com/trajectory
danfaggella
linkedin.com/in/danfaggella
Newsletter:
bit.ly/TrajectoryTw

[@drHanke]

Loved the content, but you should keep the adhd in check! Too many interruptions ;)

[@SM-wu7my]

I came here to say just that. I came to listen to Ben and only Ben. I wish he would’ve been able to speak uninterrupted

[@danfaggella9452]

Definitely a flaw - I appreciate your frankness on this. I have 2-3 strategies for podcast prep to keep my thoughts from cropping up mid-talk - I hope to see that make for better interviews in the future.

[@BadWithNames123]

if you want just ben then go watch him giving a speech its the point of an interview to interrupt.. anything else would just be boring

[@jonnygemmel2243]

Adhd is not something that needs to conform to your needs

[@arinco3817]

Ahhhhhh just settling down to this interview after a hard night of building agents. The reason why Dan is bursting with energy when he speaks on this subject, is because he truly understands the monumental shift that is around the corner

[@danfaggella9452]

You are correct sir. I hope you enjoyed the convo. I don't agree with Ben on everything, but I always respect him as a thinker and fun to let him loose talking about the BIG picture.

[@williamjmccartan8879]

Thank you for explaining the issue with the video feed, Ben lays out a robust set of measures to help with deciding the progress of agi, 6:26, great look at how certain groups look at this advancement with positivity, 35:35 ,nice effort by Ben pointing out the "dog in the fight" metaphor, misrepresents his objective to all the other dog's who are playing reach for the top in their individual programs. It is a different dynamic that is at play, how many other groups are trying to build the decentralized platform for general purposes available to society at large. Thank you very much both, Ben, and Dan for sharing your time and work, peace

[@yourbrain8700]

Cool to see Ben giving credit where credit's due when it comes to systems with very different architectures than he had in mind. I felt like he was more hesitant to do so in the recent past.

[@Copa20777]

Dr Goertzel makes a very valid point about the current state of governancy systems being unequiped to grow AGI

[@goodleshoes]

"Just like there were things before humans, there will be things after humans." If the possibilities are humanity survives longer by not making a.i. compared with making a.i. and not having alignment figuired out with the possibility of extinction risk we should just not make it. If we somehow figure out alignment then maybe but this "our successors will make our deaths and toil worth it." Doesn't sit right with me.

[@henrismith7472]

I trust this techno-hippie/human acid trip of a man much more than Sam Altman.

[@agenticmark]

Ben is honest from his point of view. Sam has been in the business of lying and obfuscating his whole career.

[@danfaggella9452]

lol I'm certain Ben would be glad to hear this

[@ManicMindTrick]

He is still a mad lad willing to gamble with human extinction in order to reach his delusional techno utopia.

[@JoeyHollister]

You're like yeah, yeah, yeah...next question,.okay thanks bye bye now. 😄 Will be interesting to find out how the $FET, $OCEAN & $AGIX merge goes.

[@williamjmccartan8879]

I'm thinking it will be a positive on the whole, but I don't have a crystal ball, I'm just going off the interplay of the three entities and expressed goals, we'll know this month one way or another and then it will probably be an interesting ride for the next few months

[@marshallodom1388]

AI is a pull string doll that is good at regurgitating shredded stolen images to draw a nice pair. I have a cute teddy bear that has a pull string, that actually talks when you pull it. It might say "Hi, I'm your friend" or "Do you want to play a game?" or just giggle. But when he sits on my shelf looking at me with his dark soulless beady eyes all night long, I wonder what it's thinking.

[@agenticmark]

you dont understand how diffusion works.

[@marshallodom1388]

But but Sam said we don't even know what's going on inside. But you're right it's not magic. It's just a hyped up LIE.

[@danfaggella9452]

@@marshallodom1388 I don't know if it's fair to call AI a lie. There are certainly some snake oil "AI" consumer / enterprise products, but much of the innovation is actually adding value somewhere. Waze helps us drive. Product recs often make shopping better. AI is used to prevent fraudulent transactions from clearing. And ChatGPT has very much replaced lengthy hunt-and-peck Google searches for people. There are hype-men in all industries, but the tech itself is enormous present ROI (even if some of it is black-box-ish and hard to explain).

[@paleeden]

Did you know the human brain is basically a generative intelligence? It's only possible for us to "regurgitate" the media we've "stolen" (consumed) over our lifetime. It's really interesting when you really think about the concept of originality. There wasn't a word of this that I didn't hear in some form or another sometime before today. Yeah, I form my own thoughts from a process of analysis and synthesis (and AI is on its way there too), but current AI generates output in very much the same way we basically do.

[@Walter5850]

What a disrespectful interviewer

[@williamjmccartan8879]

Thank you for the heads-up, but hopefully I can get a positive out of this, I actually picked up a lot of good information in this conversation, peace

[@agenticmark]

i get the feeling there was a delay in their audio.

[@danfaggella9452]

What came across as most disrespectful to you, Walter? I'm a bit too disagreeable by nature - but I'm also a big Ben fan - despite any disagreements about AI safety / direction. LMK what stuck out as too oppositional.

[@williamjmccartan8879]

@@danfaggella9452 I couldn't really figure out where that showed itself, but what do I know, keep doing you Dan, people are going to have to make their own decisions, but I can see you wanting some sort of resolution as the person being addressed, peace

[@Darth69906]

Really difficult too watch Too much coffee my guy? Try and leave spaces between opening you’re mouth

[@_TravelWithLove]

What’s wrong and what’s right with the host ?!? 👽🛸🌈🌎🌍🌏✌️😎💕

[@crbradbury8282]

Championship display of obnoxious dialog techniques. From 1party only. 🤮

[@trippyseedsindeedz]

Every time this interview gets interesting the interviewer ruins it, terrible style of interviewing