20 votes

John Carmack announces that he is mostly stepping away from Oculus, and intends to work on artificial general intelligence (AGI)

4 comments

  1. [4]
    Deimos
    Link
    Text of the post:

    Text of the post:

    Starting this week, I’m moving to a "Consulting CTO” position with Oculus.

    I will still have a voice in the development work, but it will only be consuming a modest slice of my time.

    As for what I am going to be doing with the rest of my time: When I think back over everything I have done across games, aerospace, and VR, I have always felt that I had at least a vague “line of sight” to the solutions, even if they were unconventional or unproven. I have sometimes wondered how I would fare with a problem where the solution really isn’t in sight. I decided that I should give it a try before I get too old.

    I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence (AGI).

    I think it is possible, enormously valuable, and that I have a non-negligible chance of making a difference there, so by a Pascal’s Mugging sort of logic, I should be working on it.

    For the time being at least, I am going to be going about it “Victorian Gentleman Scientist” style, pursuing my inquiries from home, and drafting my son into the work.

    Runner up for next project was cost effective nuclear fission reactors, which wouldn’t have been as suitable for that style of work. 😊

    6 votes
    1. edenist
      Link Parent
      This isn't entirely surprising. I found it interesting when he took his "off the grid" vacation a little while ago with nothing but a fresh OpenBSD machine with the intention of exploring the...

      This isn't entirely surprising. I found it interesting when he took his "off the grid" vacation a little while ago with nothing but a fresh OpenBSD machine with the intention of exploring the fundamentals of neural networks.

      Frankly I'm pretty excited by this, and I hope we all get to see some of the awesome fruits of his efforts :-)

      4 votes
    2. [2]
      mrbig
      Link Parent
      Is that the moment future historians will look to when they try to explain why we’re ruled by machines?

      Is that the moment future historians will look to when they try to explain why we’re ruled by machines?

      3 votes
      1. [2]
        Comment deleted by author
        Link Parent
        1. mrbig
          Link Parent
          I actually got the impression that he chose this field precisely because it is hard, with absolutely no guarantee of success. Not something he thinks can be solved in the summer.

          I would quip that it's more likely that it's just the millionth time an engineer thinks he can solve AI in a summer

          I actually got the impression that he chose this field precisely because it is hard, with absolutely no guarantee of success. Not something he thinks can be solved in the summer.

          5 votes