Proposal for AI Pilot Team Composition and Governance

Composition of a pilot team - Build an initial software infrastructure for testing benchmark problems, and to create a common methodological ground The pilot team should consist of a scientific board, including a mutually compatible sub-set of contemporary thinkers in the field. Its core should consist of a new generation of researchers that have the resources and impetus to work full-time on the design, implementation and publication of the project’s infrastructure. The initial team size should not be large, but agile and effective (I would suggest about five permanent researchers, about the same number of dedicated software developers, and 2-3 slots for visiting scientists at a time). The initial duration should be about 2.5 years, followed be an evaluation, and a possible continuation of similar length. Possible candidates for the scientific board include (in no particular order) Paul Rosenbloom (who worked with Alan Newell on the cognitive architecture Soar, and now started a new architecture), John Sowa (well-known for his groundbreaking work in semantic networks), Ben Goertzel (designer of the cognitive architecture OpenCog), Luc Steels (an Al researcher studying the emergence of natural language in communities of software agents), Jerome Feldman (who devised building blocks for a Neural Theory of Language), Stephen Pinker (who thought much about the relationship between language and mental representation), Stephen Kosslyn (an expert on the psychology of mental representation), Daniel Dennet, Cristiano Castelfranchi (an Al researcher specializing on mental representations of intentions and social context), and many others. The project should start out with a number of kickoff meetings to invite the interaction between suitable candidates, and the formation of a core group. The eventual pilot team could be located in many possible places, however, the project should be able to draw on the vicinity of academic and other infrastructure, and the influence of a creative environment. About me VJoscha Bach): Driven by an interest to learn hot the mind works, I studied philosophy and psychology, graduated in computer science/artificial intelligence, lead several small academic research groups, built the cognitive architecture MicroPsi and obtained a PhD in cognitive science. I co-founded a couple of startup companies in Berlin, but turned back towards academia to contribute to the question of how to build a mind. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_027008