AGI jobs? Kindred Systems Inc. => Sanctuary AI

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AndyGoode

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AGI jobs? Kindred Systems Inc. => Sanctuary AI
« on: August 05, 2019, 01:21:07 am »
Today I happened across the following YouTube video of a talk by Georgie Rose, one of the founders of D-Wave (the only quantum computer company on the planet so far)...

Geordie Rose of Kindred AI presents Super-intelligent Aliens Are Coming to Earth
TechVancouver.Org
Published on Jul 12, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD8zGnT2n_A

I hadn't heard that Geordie Rose had quit D-Wave, but more interesting is why he quit it: he wanted to get involved in another company, this one pure AI, to produce AGI. It caught my attention that they were hiring people for that company to make AGI happen. He was getting tired of people just talking about AGI for 60 years, and not producing anything very promising. Since I'm looking for a job in AI I looked up that company, Kindred Systems Inc...

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180105005243/en/Kindred-Announces-Spin-off-AGI-Research-Division

...only to find that Geordie Rose is already stepping down from his position in that new company to get involved with a newer spin-off company, called Sanctuary AI. That news article states:

Quote
Over the past few years, Kindred’s Product and Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) divisions have accomplished a tremendous amount in their respective domains, working independently to allow each team to optimize for their objectives. Geordie Rose is stepping down as CEO and President of Kindred to lead this new entity named Sanctuary based in Vancouver, Canada. Kindred co-founder Suzanne Gildert will also be stepping down from her role as Chief Science Officer and will join Sanctuary as co-CEO. Sanctuary’s focus is on the implementation and testing of a specific framework for artificial general intelligence. The new entity will license some of Kindred’s patents and software, and Kindred will maintain a minority ownership in Sanctuary.

That company sounded even more promising, like an ideal job for me, therefore I looked up Sanctuary AI, but found out that all their web pages require a password to view. More deterrents, everywhere...

https://www.sanctuary.ai
https://www.sanctuary.ai/press
https://www.sanctuary.ai/team

Through other means I managed to contact one of the team members there to ask about jobs. Whether or not I ever get a job there, even the existence of such companies is exciting news for me, and it's news I thought I'd like to share, though I'll let interested people here figure out on their own how to contact people within Sanctuary AI, since it sounds like they value their privacy. If you watch that YouTube video you should get a feel for why this is exciting news, and hopefully you'll also get a feel for why AGI is so exciting and so extremely important, if you don't realize that already.

« Last Edit: August 05, 2019, 04:59:12 am by AndyGoode »

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HS

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Re: AGI jobs? Kindred Systems Inc. => Sanctuary AI
« Reply #1 on: August 05, 2019, 03:51:46 am »
Cool. More people putting their unique efforts into this.  O0 I probably live within commuting distance of them, but my preferred way of creating AI may be a bit too steampunky and ridiculous for a serious group of professionals. I'd be best off creating my own startup company and see if I can't get another couple of idiots to join. I'm sure they'd want someone with skills and experience under their belt, if it's mostly young people they will lose lots of time having to look things up.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2019, 04:39:23 am by Hopefully Something »

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AndyGoode

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Re: AGI jobs? Kindred Systems Inc. => Sanctuary AI
« Reply #2 on: August 05, 2019, 04:56:05 am »
I'd be best off creating my own startup company and see if I can't get another couple of idiots to join.

I'm thinking along the same lines. This spring I had expected to be able to create my own company and to hire one programmer this summer, but--same old story--I got stalled with other matters. In any case, as time permits, I'll be working on my own ideas, whether working an outside job in AI, or at my own company while working an outside job not in AI. As long as I don't get worked excessive hours per week, I just might be the idiot that somebody hires to do less showy work in AI.

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goaty

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Re: AGI jobs? Kindred Systems Inc. => Sanctuary AI
« Reply #3 on: August 05, 2019, 07:22:16 am »
These guys are ripoff merchants, if their quantum computer worked wheres all the implementations -   ive never seen it actually run,  and now hes going on about aliens.

25% chance of agi by 2030 -   i thought they had the quantum computer now.

I can see through this hype.

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Art

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Re: AGI jobs? Kindred Systems Inc. => Sanctuary AI
« Reply #4 on: August 05, 2019, 01:40:03 pm »
Oddly enough, last year I was able to freely visit the Sanctuary site and roam through its entirety without password(s), etc.

What I saw (and also snagged) were pages of what appeared to be 3-D printed robots and one with a rather realistic looking face. As it turns out, that face was taken from one of those "Adult-oriented" dolls. Then put together under the watchful eye of their recently acquired associate and artist, Matt McMullen. Matt came to them from his own company's RealDoll & Realbotix where they make life-sized and lifelike "Adult" dolls and Talking character heads equipped with an "AI" (of course it does)...

The Sanctuary site also detailed that several of their members came to work from D-Wave.

Whether their work is actually geared (no pun intended) toward producing decent progress in robotics or merely seeking lots of capital/funding toward such a goal remains to be seen.

Looking at many of the photos I captured from their site it appears that the robot is using pneumatic actuators and electrical servos, but those printed parts will likely prove to be their weakest link. Another picture shows the robot sitting on a stool as if it is interacting on stage with the presenter. Again, mostly for show.


I have many interesting pics if anyone is interested in seeing /obtaining them.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2019, 05:59:27 pm by Art »
In the world of AI, it's the thought that counts!

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yotamarker

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Re: AGI jobs? Kindred Systems Inc. => Sanctuary AI
« Reply #5 on: August 05, 2019, 06:57:59 pm »
what I dislike about those kind of videos is they talk widely and philosophicaly instead
walkthroughing their actual plan to get there

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AndyGoode

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Re: AGI jobs? Kindred Systems Inc. => Sanctuary AI
« Reply #6 on: August 05, 2019, 11:33:15 pm »
What I saw (and also snagged) were pages of what appeared to be 3-D printed robots and one with a rather realistic looking face.

Many thanks for the insights. It's becoming pretty clear to me that these guys at Sanctuary are just as lost as all the other showy startups I've seen, like the kind of company Ben Goertzel creates. Also, their team member I contacted hasn't responded to me yet. As usual, it sounds like the best thing for me to do is merely to do what I've been doing all along: working on my own architecture and being poor.  :(
« Last Edit: August 06, 2019, 12:21:27 am by AndyGoode »

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AndyGoode

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Re: AGI jobs? Kindred Systems Inc. => Sanctuary AI
« Reply #7 on: August 05, 2019, 11:59:58 pm »
These guys are ripoff merchants, if their quantum computer worked wheres all the implementations -   ive never seen it actually run,  and now hes going on about aliens.

25% chance of agi by 2030 -   i thought they had the quantum computer now.

I can see through this hype.

I've looked pretty deeply into their quantum computer. You have to realize that this is not a universal quantum computer, which is where a lot of people's thinking goes wrong: most people don't know there exist three types of quantum computers and D-Wave's type is the simplest type. That all makes sense, since obviously people will tend to build the simplest types of machines first. D-Wave has built the "quantum annealer" type of quantum computer, which does only optimization problems.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/three-types-quantum-computers/

D-Wave's technology is still extremely clever and very cutting edge, and at least they have *some* type of quantum computer. No other company anywhere on the planet has *any* type of quantum computer for sale, so my statement about D-Wave being the only such company is correct. Here's a good presentation that explains how the D-Wave hardware was invented:

()
Quantum Journey - D-Wave Chief Scientist, Eric Ladizinsky
D-Wave Systems
Published on May 14, 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fArXhQBLDWE

Having said that, D-Wave *is* involved in a more subtle type of hype: they keep talking about Rose's Law but their architecture is not fully connecting their qubits, therefore Rose's Law doesn't apply, therefore nobody knows how much parallelism their machines actually get. I do resent that hype.

As for aliens, that's to be expected in TED type talks such as that one for the general public. That's just poetic license. There is another much-quoted presentation on quantum computers, by Elon Musk, where Elon talks about tapping into higher dimensions / parallel universes, which a lot of Christian New Paradigmers quote as being "proof" that scientists are summoning demons into the world in The Last Days, etc. I don't agree with those extremist claims, though I keep an open mind. Again, I consider that just poetic license for consumption by the general public. Here's one of those "parallel universes" / CERN / Mandela Effect videos I can't stand by illogical copycat extremists:

()
D Wave Quantum Computers EXPOSED 2018: A.I. Demon Apocalypse & Mandela Effect
Edge of Wonder
Published on May 18, 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfTnQf_yF-A

Personally I prefer D-Wave's hype over the above demons hype.
« Last Edit: August 08, 2019, 10:25:59 pm by AndyGoode »

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AndyGoode

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Re: AGI jobs? Kindred Systems Inc. => Sanctuary AI
« Reply #8 on: August 07, 2019, 01:25:20 am »
what I dislike about those kind of videos is they talk widely and philosophicaly instead
walkthroughing their actual plan to get there

Yes, maybe I'm a sucker for presentations that show a lot of wisdom, maybe because I (wrongly) assume that anybody that wise would not try to put together a worthless company just to make money off a buzzword like "AGI", "deep learning", or "bitcoin". But many people do. Some of the most offensive examples of people trying to make money off AGI-related buzzwords are the Singularity University (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singularity_University) and AGI Innovations, Inc. (which has been advertising the same job openings for at about three years, but they would never respond when I applied to most of those jobs).

I'm now kicking myself because I missed another obvious clue about the questionable nature of Sanctuary: all their top contact people are attractive women. That just doesn't happen in advanced technical areas, especially in the fields of math or computer science. Just look at our own forum: how many females are among the most active posters? Maybe none. It was just a PR move on Sanctuary's part, to get women interested and believing that theirs is a company with empowered women, and to superficially look attractive to the general public, with the more general goal in both cases of attracting investors.

The clincher is what you mentioned: If they are focusing on a given architecture or approach, you would think they would describe that to some extent, but there are no details whatsoever, just superficial pictures of human-looking robots and 3D-printed robots (pictures that Art thankfully grabbed before they covered even those up), neither of which are going to bring anybody closer to AGI. The heart of AGI will probably be very boring, and which artificial face they put on their hardware will be totally irrelevant. But I guess it's hard to get investors interested in neural networks, chaos theory, quantum mechanics, tensor math, data structures, or any other topics more likely to be important in AGI.

Two days later their contact still hasn't gotten back to me, and I don't expect she ever will.

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HS

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Re: AGI jobs? Kindred Systems Inc. => Sanctuary AI
« Reply #9 on: August 07, 2019, 01:55:50 am »
Lol. Do they not know how to do things right and follow through with good ideas? Except for Elon that is, but one guy can't pursue  every idea that shows potential.

They must know. But then why choose the froofra route? Maybe it's necessary for marketing, popularity, funding. Got to have the flashy veneer to gain general interest, which then allows you to work on the technical stuff.
« Last Edit: August 07, 2019, 03:00:24 am by Hopefully Something »

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Art

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Re: AGI jobs? Kindred Systems Inc. => Sanctuary AI
« Reply #10 on: August 07, 2019, 03:44:41 am »
OK...for those who might now be "locked out" from visiting the site, here are some photos that somehow got in front of my lens while I was wandering the halls at the Sanctuary.

Anyone notice the 3D printed parts I earlier mentioned? Take a good look at that very strong neck with those springs and plastic vertebrae. Amazing!

Two of the three women are shown "working" on some robotic code.

Naturally, they positioned the robot as if it can actually see and play chess. I'd wager a whole box of doggo treats that it can't (for the per dog mascot of course).
Then they position the robot atop of a plexiglass table with some legs underneath for effect I suppose.
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Art

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Re: AGI jobs? Kindred Systems Inc. => Sanctuary AI
« Reply #11 on: August 07, 2019, 03:55:16 am »
Telerobotics of course -
Some "Mirroring" (do as I do) -
Nadine the robot in the room with a lot of her little toy robot friends -
Nadine is catching up on a bit of light reading, I'm sure -
In the world of AI, it's the thought that counts!

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goaty

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Re: AGI jobs? Kindred Systems Inc. => Sanctuary AI
« Reply #12 on: August 07, 2019, 04:01:16 am »
I don't mind Elon, George Hotz, I actually don't even mind Jeff Hawkins, because at least hes an open tech company where he has detailed tech explanations, with HTM, (and it does actually work, itll do k-nn matches for example)  what I hate the most is QUANTUM COMPUTERS THAT DONT EVEN WORK AT ALL!

It seems if you want a good startup,  if your a quantum computer company it works even without having a quantum computer!  :)

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Art

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Re: AGI jobs? Kindred Systems Inc. => Sanctuary AI
« Reply #13 on: August 07, 2019, 04:01:52 am »
Do not be scared by the ultra-rugged appearance of this menacing hand -

A few last-minute alterations -

The first "dance"? ya got me there -

Oh yes puny humans, I have siblings!!
In the world of AI, it's the thought that counts!

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Re: AGI jobs? Kindred Systems Inc. => Sanctuary AI
« Reply #14 on: August 07, 2019, 04:04:03 am »
That dog :D

Image cave...
https://www.google.ca/search?q=sanctuary+artificial+intelligence&hl=en-CA&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9iMzn4e_jAhVTG80KHcwFD5AQ_AUIESgC&biw=1280&bih=923#imgrc=_

Uh, Google Images, not sure if I like that side box update

Art, wandering their halls? Isn't at least one of your images from the Google Images? Let me recheck.
Emergent          https://openai.com/blog/

 


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