Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is an emerging field aiming at the building of “thinking machines”; that is, general-purpose systems with intelligence comparable to that of the human mind. What is currently labeled ‘artificial intelligence’ is largely narrow automated knowledge work, lacking the flexibility and adaptability seen in animal intelligence. The pursuit of AGI begins at a foundational level, asking fundamental questions about models of cognition, knowledge acquisition, making choices through reason, thinking and conceiving the world in adaptive and intuitive ways.

An interview with Peter Voss, AGI researcher from Southern California.

Peter’s first career and passion was in electronics engineering. At 25 he launched his first company, Electronic Designs, which within 7 years IPO’ed as a 400 person software/ hardware solutions company. Peter designed the company’s ERP suite, including its 4th generation database and programming language. He acquired extensive expertise in finance and management, both in his role as CEO/ chairman, as well as via creating and selling ERP software.

After retiring from the company Peter spent several years studying various subjects pertaining to advanced AI: These included cognitive psychology, psychometrics, epistemology, neural networks and other aspects of computer science. In 2002 he launched Adaptive AI Inc. (a2i2), an R&D company focused on developing AGI (artificial general intelligence), and in 2008 he spun out SmartAction, a commercial company utilizing a2i2’s intelligence engine.

Over the past 4 years his focus has shifted back to further developing intelligent agent technology. To this end he launched AGI Innovations Inc., a 10 person technology development company dedicated to achieving further breakthroughs in deep natural language understanding, adaptive conversation management, and contextual reasoning.

Peter often writes and presents on various philosophical topics including rational ethics, free will and artificial minds; and is deeply involved with futurism and radical life-extension.