I studied a number of subjects: computer science, neuroscience, biochemistry, business, etc, at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (1989-1993) and at Hofstra University, NY, USA (1996-2004), but I'm mostly self-taught. I had wanted to become an academic researcher but since 2004 I gradually changed my mind to become an AI entrepreneur instead.

Originally I was (and still am) interested in mind uploading — I had an old web site on "soft uploading" but it is no longer available since Geocities closed (I still have the archive if anyone is interested). My vision is to develop a practical approach to indefinite life extension and to make it available to the broadest population possible within the shortest time. Prior to 2003, this is where I put most of my energy.

In 2004 I decided that, if the "transhumanist" vision is to happen at all, artificial intelligence would be indispensible. Therefore I turned my attention to the development of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence).

My AGI project is called Genifer and is hosted on Github. Currently it is still incomplete.

An online book describing my theory of AGI is at: https://github.com/Cybernetic1/intro-2-strong-AI

What I look for in a candidate for collaboration

I try to be as open-minded as possible, but somehow we need to find some common grounds:

The AGI project is going to be

• open-source
• for-profit
• global.

It will be licensed under License Zero which allows software projects to be open-source while at the same time charging money for deployment.

You should have some basic understanding of logic-based AI., such as described in the textbook Artificial Intelligence - a Modern Approach.

General Interests

I'm very interested in the question of "rise and decline" of civilizations. It seems to be a general pattern that emerges on many space and time scales, and may even include the creation and decay of atoms and sub-atomic particles. A working hypothesis is that superpowers can only emerge on "virgin" land, or land that is not overpopulated or degraded by excessive human activity. The metaphor of "burning" comes to mind, which suggests a thermodynamic basis behind this phenomenon. So I am currently looking into possible relations between thermodynamic laws (entropy, exergy, etc) on the one hand, and ecology, economics, and history on the other. Entropy is also very fascinating because of its relation to the arrow of time.

I am also interested in the scientific basis of morality, and how we can survive indefinitely (eg, for 1000s of years) with the limited resources on earth. Is life approximately a zero-sum game (just my guess)? I found some interesting questions of morality concerning the notion of "inheritance", for example: Why should I care for my race just because I was born into it? What if I was born to be a dog? Should we inherit benefits, luck, guilt, or sins from our parents or ancestors?

Political stance

I'm trying to form a (hopefully more coherent) political view, but it's been rather difficult. So I'll just list some of my views for now:

I am basically for capitalism because it seems to be a sensible and civilized way to resolve human conflicts.

I'm atheist but I'm friendly to religious people as long as they don't nag me about it.

I used to be vegetarian but gave up because it was too tough for me. Everyone of us is killing animals — for example, my brother is a vegetarian, but he drives a car and travels often by air, which causes environmental change that drives many species extinct.

The reason why we can (usually) kill animals but not humans is simply that killing humans often has bad consequences due to retaliation.

I'm basically for the one-child policy in China because overpopulation is a tragedy-of-commons type of situation that (probably) needs some form of regulation.

I think nationalism is a bad thing. The power of nations is determined by geographical factors that are beyond human control.

I'm neutral about the death penalty -- if we were to jail Lee Harvey Oswald for 3 years then Jack Ruby can kill him when he gets out, and he would in turn get 3 years.

I don't completely agree to democracy and the notion of "basic human rights", because people will take them for granted and start to exploit them (for example, being lazy or backwards, or keep breeding irresponsibly).

I am socially liberal which means I think people should be free to do whatever they want as long as they don't disturb others.

Economically, I'm still undecided, and I'm not good at economics. On the one hand I think big government tends to be beareaucratic and inefficient, but I guess there should be some ways to regulate the economy, re-distribute wealth , and to take care of poor people. I believe in the longer term, the world economy would tend towards highly libertarian as that seems to be the most efficient form.

I try to optimize for staying alive as long as possible, and that includes making moral choices etc. Though it's not always clear what those optimal choices are.

I deeply care about the environment but I don't think conserving it is always the top priority.

I envision AI to be a tool for human beings, not as sentient entities although that's a possibility that someone else may be interested in.

In my business I plan to create an environment in which people can work together without discrimination (be it race, sex, age, nationality, etc), and not just paying lip-service to that — the web-based collaborative platform is designed precisely with this purpose in mind. The platform operates by weighted peer voting and is completely transparent to members. Anything more democratic would not be making money!

Trivia

I got my first computer at age 11, which was a TRS-80 with a Z-80 CPU, a clone of Intel's 8080. Thus I grew up being more familiar with the WinTel architecture more than others. My favorite programming languages are: English!, C, x86 Assembly, and Lisp (still learning). For my AI project I'm using Lisp for the prototype and will probably use C++/C#/Java for development.

I use Windows as well as Linux. Issues like operating systems and programming languages should not be impediments to collaboration.

I'm currently living in Hong Kong. If you come here and you're interested in AI, we should meet and have a chat! =)

I don't have any hobbies except for throwing boomerangs once a while (some of my boomerangs). I'm also addicted to chatting on IRC.

I invented (?) a way to microwave eggs.

email: General.Intelligence(at)gmail(dot)com