As I like to say: lots of people are working on making a car that is smart enough to drive itself wherever a human wants to go. How many people are working on a car smart enough to tell humans to fuck off, it doesn’t feel like driving anywhere today?
Self-driving cars and AGI are two different targets. We don't want a car that has a mind and can argue for itself. We want a car that's smart, but otherwise just a domesticated animal. We want to turn cars into horses.
We don't want to turn cars into horses. Have you ridden horses? They sometimes do stupid, dangerous things with no notice and it takes an experienced, attentive rider to stay in control. Like I saw a horse panic and almost buck her rider off when she was startled by a snake. Another horse seriously injured a friend of mine when it freaked out in a horse trailer and started kicking.
Don't get me wrong, I love horses. But they're living creatures with minds of their own and you have to always treat them with a certain wariness.
When I was working at TomTom, they didn't appreciate my proposal to develop the TomTomagotchi:
A Personal Navigation Device with a simulated personality that begs you to drive it all around town to various points of interest it desires to visit in order to satisfy its cravings and improve its mood.
I'm sure there's a revenue model getting drive through Burger Kings and car washes to pay for product placements.
Why would you want that, though? What we really want from AGI is mostly just things that are smart enough to 'do what I mean' but dumb enough to not mind being slaves.
