Editors, Ben Goertzel and Cassio Pennachin
1. Purpose and Focus of the Book
The purpose of this edited volume is to give the first-ever coherent presentation of a body of contemporary research that, in spite of its integral importance to science (and arguably to humanity in general), is virtually unknown to the scientific and intellectual community. This body of work has not been given a name before; in this book we christen it Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). What distinguishes AGI work from run-of-the-mill artificial intelligence research is that it is explicitly focused on engineering general intelligence in the short term.
Of course, general intelligence does not mean exactly the same thing to all relevant researchers. But nevertheless, there is a marked distinction between AGI work and, on the other hand,
· Pragmatic but specialized AI research which is aimed at creating programs carrying out specific tasks like playing chess, diagnosing diseases, driving cars and so forth (most contemporary AI work falls into this category)
· Purely theoretical AI research, which is aimed at clarifying issues regarding the nature of intelligence and cognition, but doesnt involve technical details regarding actually realizing artificially intelligent software (a lot of philosophy and cognitive science oriented AI work falls into this category, for instance Minskys Society of Mind work)
Current work proceeding in the AGI vein is, we believe, unjustly obscure, and deserves to be brought to the attention of the AI community, and also to the broader community of scientists and students in related fields such as philosophy, neuroscience, linguistics, psychology, biology, sociology, anthropology and engineering.
Bringing the diverse body of AGI research together in a single volume reveals the common themes among various researchers work, and makes clear what the big open questions are in this vital and critical area of research. It is our hope that this book will interest more researchers and students in pursuing AGI research themselves, thus aiding in the progress of science.
There are a handful of known AGI research projects, whose architects have not yet committed to write chapters (Jason Hutchens HAL project, Stewart Grands Creatures project, for example). If chapters on these projects are not contributed, then sections will be added to the introductory chapter overviewing this research work, so as to give the book a relatively comprehensive nature.
2. Schedule
Our aim is for a mid-2003 publication for the book.
3. About the Editors
The chief editor of the book, Dr. Ben Goertzel, has published 4 research treatises, one trade science book, and one previous edited volume, as well as numerous research papers (for his CV, see www.goertzel.org/ben/newResume.htm). Co-editor Cassio Pennachin, Dr. Goertzels his long-time R&D collaborator, was the VP of R&D at Webmind Inc., and leads the software consulting firm www.vettatech.com. Ben and Cassio are the chief architects of the Novamente AI Engine, one of the AGI projects described in the book.
4. Intended Audience
The book is intended primarily for academics, graduate students and advanced undergraduates. The core audience will consist of
· computer scientists and computer science students
· academics and students in cognitive science affiliated disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics and neuroscience
We hope to also attract a secondary audience consisting of
· Scientifically curious computer professionals
· Scientists in unrelated fields, who have read relatively sophisticated (idea-focused rather than biography-focused) popular science books like Order Out of Chaos (Ilya Prigogine), Frontiers of Chaos (Coveney and Highfield), Godel, Escher, Bach (Hofstadter), etc.
A few chapters will include significant mathematical formalism, but the majority of chapters will be readable by individuals without mathematical sophistication who are willing to skip over brief mathematical sections.
