# Profoundd archive — Epstein Files
# Bates number: EFTA00763967
# Title:        From: on behalf of Ben Goertzel <ail
# Dataset:      9
# Pages:        2
# Tags:         epstein, doj, dataset-9
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=== SUMMARY ===
From: on behalf of Ben Goertzel <ail To: Jeffrey Epstein Subject: Progress on my "How to Build AGI" book: good but still a bit more to be done; can you help? Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:35:52 +0000 Attachments: bbm_toc.pdf; book2.pdf; bookl.pdf Hi Jeffrey, As you may recall when you funded me with $50K in the early fall, I said I would use the money to finish my book on "how to build an AGI" within a 6 month period. I "wasted" a month of that time writing a research proposal and trying to sell it


=== EXTRACTED TEXT ===
From: on behalf of Ben Goertzel <ail 
To: Jeffrey Epstein 
Subject: Progress on my "How to Build AGI" book: good but still a bit more to be done; can you 
help? 
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:35:52 +0000 
Attachments: bbm_toc.pdf; book2.pdf; bookl.pdf 
Hi Jeffrey, 
As you may recall when you funded me with $50K in the early fall, I said I would use the 
money to finish my book on "how to build an AGI" within a 6 month period. I "wasted" a month 
of that time writing a research proposal and trying to sell it to "AI big shots", as you 
know... but even so I made pretty good progress. But III not done yet, and I could use some 
help during the last stages... 
Attached you'll find what I have so far. It's first -draft and hence NOT suitable to be sent 
to AI experts to read; III just sending it to you confidentially as an indication of my 
progress. 
I've attached a file with just the table of contents if you just want to see the scope of the 
effort. It's about 750 pages and has been split into 2 volumes. The first drafts of the two 
volumes are also attached, though I **don't** recommend you to read them yet, but rather to 
wait till a more final draft is available. (This draft probably still has some errors in 
equations, and lacks many needed figures, etc.) 
What needs to be done now is: my co-authors and I need to check over everything very 
carefully, correct errors and insert better 
explanations; and, I need to deal with all the figures and references, which is a huge job. 
I think I can bring the book to a reasonable state of completion in 3 more months of work. 
This may seem like a long time, but dealing with 750 pages of complex information is just 
plain time-consuming ... and stuff like "checking for mistakes" has to be done painstakingly, 
it can't really be hurried. 
So, unsurprisingly, III wondering if be willing to fund the completion of the book. My 
personal burn rate remains $8-9K/month as it has been for a long time, due to alimony and 2 
kids in college, etc. III very appreciative of the funding you've provided so far and I 
hate to keep asking for more, but my everyday reality is what it is ;-p 
Now some comments on how the book relates to those evaluation letters that you didn't like... 
Those evaluation letters that I got were written by people who didn't really understand my 
ideas. They got the "general picture" of my AGI design and wrote the most positive letters 
they could based on that general picture. I thought that, given this situation, the 
letters were as positive as could be expected ... so I was happy with the letters; but very 
unfortunately it seems you had a different opinion ;-( 
The only really surefire way to convince "AI big shots" of the viability of my approach would 
be to build it and show them the working system. But of course, by that point, I wouldn't 
need the recommendations of those people anyway -- because a "working AGI system" would 
enable me to bring in $$ from all sorts of sourses. 
However, a second-rate way to try to convince these folks my approach is good would be to 
have them read the DETAILS of my approach, rather than just a brief high-level overview 
proposal. In other words: if I 
**finish** my book, and get these AI big shots to **read** it, then I have little doubt that 
their evaluation of my work will **improve** 
significantly. Whether it will improve significantly enough to motivate you to fund my work, 
remains unclear, of course. But at least, in this case the "big shots" would be offering 
opinions based on more understanding of what III suggesting. Of course, their intuitions 
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about what kind of approach is best might STILL differ substantially from mine, though.... 
(After all, if these big-shot guys had the right intuition about AGI, they would have created 
one already, since they have a lock on all the US gov't AI funding... so it's kind of obvious 
from their (lack of) results that their AGI intuitions are somewhat flawed...) 
Of course I would MUCH MUCH MUCH rather see you actually fund my research project! !! The 
more I work on the book, the more frustrated I am that III not, instead, leading a team 
building the damn system!! !! But, if you aren't convinced enough to do that at present, it 
would be great if at least be willing to fund me to put in the few more months needed 
to finish the book.... 
Publishing the book via some major scientific publisher (Springer, World Scientific, 
whatever) shouldn't be a problem... 
I will finish the book even without your additional funding; but it might take 9-12 months 
rather than 3 months due to needing to spend my time on income generation instead of the 
book.... 
BTW III still debating moving to China but I haven't actually gotten the job offer from 
the Chinese university yet ... and even if that happens I wouldn't move till late August. 
Also I applied for some US university positions, but that option is not as appealing because 
I don't have funding to pay students to work on my AGI system here; whereas the Chinese 
gov't, if they offer me a job, will also offer funding for students. [China, unlike the 
US, realizes that it's really stupid to make top scientists spend 70% of their time writing 
proposals and fighting over money ;-p]. It seems likely I will make a decision about the 
"China option" in March or April. 
As always feel free to call me (240 505 6518) or arrange a F2F meeting if you want to discuss 
in more depth... 
I will continue to press on along the research path I KNOW is correct ... the risk is not 
that my approach is wrong, but rather that due to lack of funding I'll get old and die before 
I manage to complete the work ;-p 
Thanks.. 
Ben 
Ben Goertzel, PhD 
CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC 
Director of Applied Research, Singularity Institute for AI 
Chairman, Humanity+ 
External Research Professor, Xiamen University, China 
"Before something is a breakthrough, it's a 
crazy idea" -- Peter Diamandis 
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