From: s.p. (velvet977@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Nov 07 2002 - 21:37:17 MST
> C'mon, Slawek!!! Don't be shy ;) I was specifically trying to solicit
> off-the-wall ideas!!
>
> Ben G
I'm sorry, they will be suggested once there is no funding available at all.
But let me say this. Although FAI may seem as a strictly technical endeavor,
not much different than any other private or public project, it is, first
and foremost, a humanitarian effort trying
to maximize the chances of a safe Singularity that just happens to be
implemented by FAI. It's an important distinction because if the approach to
funding is the same as with any other regular project, then it won't get
funded at all since it's not a project that is supposed to be "making
money". Who can blame potential investors?
Let's face it, the most probable sources of funding for FAI projects are
wealthy individuals who would not necessarily have to be familiar with the
field of AI or FAI, but who would "know enough" about Singularity, its
consequences, and that it is possible and crucial to implement it in a safe
way. Some regular people (i.e., not business-oriented types) have enough
intelligence to understand what's it all about too, and enough money to
support the FAI research. It's just a question of reaching them. Who cares
if 1M is
donated by a Silicon Valley resident or that this million is made up of four
250K donations made by a wealthy engineer, real estate agent, a celebrity
and a retired farmer, it's still 1M.
So the basic idea would be to focus more on the efforts meant to make the
knowledge more accessible to general public. With some luck, who knows, this
project may be fully funded by few "wacky" enough people whose background
may have nothing to do with Computer Science. Unless, there is a person in
SV who will step in and fund this whole thing, but I guess this would
require even more luck.
So how to increase the awareness and make this knowledge more accessible to
regular people or the "right" people? Well, that's where those off-the-wall
ideas come in.
Slawek
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