Dr. Ben Goertzel is a pioneering AI researcher, entrepreneur, and author who has helped organize AGI as a research field since the 2000s through books, workshops, and conferences.

We talk about the early days of AGI research with Yudkowsky, get Ben’s timeline to the singularity, and I try to understand what makes him so optimistic that superintelligence will be beneficial for humanity.

Timestamps

00:00:00 — Cold Open

00:00:59 — Introducing Dr. Ben Goertzel

00:04:11 — How Did Ben Get Interested in AGI?

00:08:26 — Early AGI Enthusiast Community: Extropians & SL4

00:15:15 — Is There Headroom Above Human Intelligence?

00:19:53 — Can Superintelligent AI Kill Everyone?

00:28:25 — Ben’s AGI Timeline: 2029

00:36:00 — What Modern AI Is Missing

00:42:01 — AGI to Superintelligence — FOOM in a Matter of Months

00:46:34 — What’s Your P(Doom)?™

00:53:37 — Ben’s Case for AI Acceleration

01:03:50 — The Orthogonality Thesis Is “Dishonest”

01:13:43 — Liron: Moore’s Law for Goal Achievement

01:23:50 — Ben: Alignment Is Just Good Parenting

01:27:36 — Alignment in Practice: OmegaCLAW

01:35:47 — Creating Stable Goals Under Self-Modification

01:45:22 — SingularityNET, OpenBGI, and the ASI Alliance

01:57:31 — The $ASI Token Economy

02:01:15 — Closing

Links

Ben Goertzel on X — https://x.com/bengoertzel

SingularityNET — https://singularitynet.io/

OpenBGI — https://openbgi.com/

Hyperon AGI Framework — https://hyperon.dev/

OmegaCLAW on GitHub — https://github.com/asi-alliance/OmegaClaw-Core

ASI Alliance — https://superintelligence.io/

The Consciousness Explosion (book) — https://theconsciousnessexplosion.ai/

“The Singularity Institute’s Scary Idea (and Why I Don’t Buy It)” (2010) — http://multiverseaccordingtoben.blogspot.com/2010/10/singularity-institutes-scary-idea-and.html

Ken Stanley Debate — https://lironshapira.substack.com/p/debate-with-a-former-openai-research

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