From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Thu Nov 07 2002 - 07:37:15 MST
Hi,
First of all, I definitely think Eliezer is taking the right course in his
serious fund-raising activity.
SIAI is too far-out for almost any research or humanitarian nonprofit to
fund. Of course, nothing can ever be ruled out entirely -- a "lucky find"
is always possible. But by far the likeliest option, as Eliezer says, is
for another individual philanthropist to step in. The amount being
requested is really quite modest.
Having gotten that out of the way, though, I do think it's interesting to
explore more creative and speculative means of raising funds for AGI and
other Singularity-related work...
Cliff suggested:
> A $10 per ticket You Get To Be God lottery (easier to make money off
> the less intelligent/wealthy many -- they needn't know everybody ends
> up winning...)?
I quite like this one. Very funny. Raffle off chances to be the first
upload... There's definitely a funky sci-fi story there, if there hasn't
been one already written on the theme...
Cliff, your point about selling people pieces of the moon is interesting
though. The underlying motivation there is that people like to have some
personal connection with what they're paying for.
Just as getting people to pay for Third World children is easier if it's set
up so that each person is sponsoring *one particular* child, who they can
get a letter from every year.
I wonder if they're a good way to "personalize" peoples' connections with
AGI, in a similar way. We can't have each person sponsor their own AGI, of
course -- that will be reserved for the *really big* donations ;-p
ben
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