Acknowledgements and History of OpenCog/Novamente AI Projects

ix the set of chapter co-authors does not exhaust the set of significant contributors to the ideas presented. The core concepts of the CogPrime design and the underlying theory were conceived by Ben Goertzel in the period 1995-1996 when he was a Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia; but those early ideas have been elaborated and improved by many more people than can be listed here (as well as by Ben’s ongoing thinking and research). The collaborative design process ultimately resulting in CogPrime started in 1997 when Intelligenesis Corp. was formed — the Webmind AI Engine created in Intelligenesis’s research group during 1997-2001 was the predecessor to the Novamente Cognition Engine created at Novamente LLC during 2001-2008, which was the predecessor to CogPrime. Acknowledgements For sake of simplicity, this acknowledgements section is presented from the perspective of the primary author, Ben Goertzel. Ben will thus begin by expressing his thanks to his primary co-authors, Cassio Pennachin (collaborator since 1998) and Nil Geisweiller (collaborator since 2005). Without outstandingly insightful, deep-thinking colleagues like you, the ideas presented here — let alone the book itself— would not have developed nearly as effectively as what has happened. Similar thanks also go to the other OpenCog collaborators who have co-authored various chapters of the book. Beyond the co-authors, huge gratitude must also be extended to everyone who has been involved with the OpenCog project, and/or was involved in Novamente LLC and Webmind Inc. before that. We are grateful to all of you for your collaboration and intellectual companionship! Building a thinking machine is a huge project, too big for any one human; it will take a team and I’m happy to be part of a great one. It is through the genius of human collectives, going beyond any individual human mind, that genius machines are going to be created. A tiny, incomplete sample from the long list of those others deserving thanks is: e Ken Silverman and Gwendalin Qi Aranya (formerly Gwen Goertzel), both of whom listened to me talk at inordinate length about many of the ideas presented here a long, long time before anyone else was interested in listening. Ken and I schemed some AGI designs at Simon’s Rock College in 1983, years before we worked together on the Webmind AI Engine. Allan Combs, who got me thinking about consciousness in various different ways, at a very early point in my career. I’m very pleased to still count Allan as a friend and sometime collaborator! Fred Abraham as well, for introducing me to the intersection of chaos theory and cognition, with a wonderful flair. George Christos, a deep AI/math/physics thinker from Perth, for re-awakening my interest in attractor neural nets and their cognitive implications, in the mid-1990s. e All of the 130 staff of Webmind Inc. during 1998-2001 while that remarkable, ambitious, peculiar AGI-oriented firm existed. Special shout-outs to the "Voice of Reason" Pei Wang and the "Siberian Madmind" Anton Kolonin, Mike Ross, Cate Hartley, Karin Verspoor and the tragically prematurely deceased Jeff Pressing (compared to whom we are all mental midgets), who all made serious conceptual contributions to my thinking about AGI. Lisa Pazer and Andy Siciliano who made Webmind happen on the business side. And of course Cassio Pennachin, a co-author of this book; and Ken Silverman, who co-architected the whole Webmind system and vision with me from the start. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_012905