At Rise of AI 2019 in Berlin, Ben Goertzel argues that a decentralized, self-organizing 'society and economy of minds' is the best route to both artificial general intelligence and a democratic, participatory global AI. He frames general intelligence as a spectrum on which humans sit far below possible superintelligence, and describes AI development moving from today's narrow-AI revolution toward an AGI revolution and eventually a superintelligence revolution. Goertzel warns that AI development is currently concentrated in a dozen corporations and two large governments, whose systems are mostly used for spying, killing, selling and betting, and that this narrow set of goals risks shaping the superintelligence that eventually emerges, while also magnifying global wealth inequality. His response is SingularityNET, a decentralized, blockchain-based AI platform he founded in 2017, funded via a token sale, where independent AI agents, including his own OpenCog architecture, can interoperate and offer services. He describes deployments including the Sophia robot, a pizza-delivery optimization project with Domino's, longevity research, and a new enterprise spin-off, Singularity Studio.
Key takeaways
- Ben Goertzel argues AI development today is dominated by about a dozen corporations and two large governments, mostly using AI for spying, selling, killing or betting.
- SingularityNET, founded by Goertzel in 2017 and funded via a token sale, is a decentralized blockchain platform where independent AI agents interoperate and offer services.
- Goertzel's preferred path to AGI is his own OpenCog architecture, a hypergraph knowledge store combining logic engines, evolutionary learning and neural networks.
- SingularityNET and Hanson Robotics used OpenCog to run the Sophia robot as a meditation coach, which some users said deepened their meditative states.
- The Rejuve network studies DNA from people aged 105 and older and lets contributors be compensated via cryptographic tokens if their data leads to a therapy.
Detailed notes
From narrow AI to AGI and superintelligence
Goertzel frames general intelligence as a spectrum: humans are more generally intelligent than dogs or AlphaGo, but are not maximally intelligent, illustrated by his own poor ability to navigate a 3,072-dimensional problem despite the two-dimensional grid cells in his hippocampus. He describes the field as being in the middle of a narrow-AI revolution, heading toward an AGI revolution and eventually a superintelligence revolution. He notes it is unclear whether AGI will come from a single breakthrough algorithm or, as in Marvin Minsky's Society of Mind vision, from many AI systems cooperating, and says he expects a mix of both.
Risks of centralized control
Beyond speculative existential risks, Goertzel highlights a nearer-term risk: AI concentrating wealth so that a small number of people who own automated factories and delivery systems prosper while everyone else is reduced to subsistence. He observes that AI development today is dominated by about a dozen corporations and two large governments, and that the AI deployed by them is mostly used for spying, killing or defending people, selling goods, or gambling on markets. Because these systems are trained to maximize shareholder value or state hegemony, he argues they will not represent the full range of human needs, and current deep neural networks, while effective at finding patterns in data, cannot generalize beyond their training data to invent new scientific theories, art forms or systems of government.
SingularityNET as a decentralized alternative
Goertzel's response is SingularityNET, a decentralized blockchain-based AI platform he founded in 2017 and funded through a token sale, with its beta launched in February 2019. He argues the same self-organizing, agent-based architecture needed for a Society of Minds approach to AGI is also what is needed to democratize AI: a network of interoperable AI agents with flexible APIs and shared memory, owned by everyone and no one. SingularityNET connects with the related Ocean Protocol network for decentralized big data, and Goertzel says over 50 projects now form a broader ecosystem combining AI and blockchain. His own preferred path to AGI remains the OpenCog architecture, a hypergraph knowledge store combining logic engines, evolutionary learning and neural networks, which can operate on the network alongside AI agents built by anyone else.
Applications: Sophia, longevity and enterprise AI
Goertzel describes several deployments: OpenCog and SingularityNET have been used to run the Sophia robot developed with Hanson Robotics, including as a meditation coach that some users found deepened their meditative states; a project with Domino's optimizes pizza delivery; a network called Rejuve analyzes DNA from people aged 105 and older to study longevity, using a cryptographic token so people who contribute biology data can be compensated if it leads to a therapy, unlike 23andMe, which he says sold sequencing data to GlaxoSmithKline without compensating users. He is also launching Singularity Studio, an enterprise spin-off working with companies including Ping An Technology, to help large firms without internal AI expertise integrate SingularityNET's decentralized AI into fintech, health-tech and IoT products.
Quotes
If that's what the baby AI is doing with all its time in its mind, what kind of a superintelligence is it actually going to grow into?
Ben Goertzel
AI magnifying global wealth inequality could lead to a lot of other problems.
Ben Goertzel
It should be all of us and everyone on the planet together.
Ben Goertzel
Questions answered in this talk
What is SingularityNET?
According to Ben Goertzel at Rise of AI 2019, SingularityNET is a decentralized, blockchain-based AI platform he founded in 2017 where independent AI agents, including his own OpenCog architecture, can interoperate, exchange data and offer services to anyone on the network.
What risks does Ben Goertzel see in AI being controlled by a small number of companies and governments?
According to Ben Goertzel at Rise of AI 2019, AI development is currently concentrated in about a dozen corporations and two large governments whose systems are mostly used for spying, selling, killing or betting, which risks magnifying global wealth inequality and shaping a future superintelligence around narrow commercial or state goals.
What real-world applications has SingularityNET's AI been used for?
According to Ben Goertzel at Rise of AI 2019, SingularityNET and OpenCog have powered the Sophia robot as a meditation coach with Hanson Robotics, optimized pizza delivery with Domino's, supported longevity research through the Rejuve network, and now power an enterprise spin-off called Singularity Studio for companies such as Ping An Technology.