[outsideline]

> I'm not attempting to be a smart ass, but you should back up your speculation with facts and references. Is the best research a secret?

Yes. Given the attitudes of people in the space and beyond and lack of funding why shouldn't the more valuable and fundamental research be kept secret? They're taking all of the risk to pursue something that everyone is saying is impossible. Why would they publish details? If more funding and support would come through maybe they would. Otherwise, they're seemingly developing a fundamental AGI that has the ability to operate under its own free-will and mechanisms. It is being said that it's impossible... Once it's completed no one will be able to deny it at that point. Maybe the money will come then... Maybe the openness will too.

> Your post implied that you have some special insight into research groups that are doing AGI research and are making steady progress. I have done plenty of Google searches and not run across any notable AGI progress.

Yes and I will not disclose where my insights derive from. I'm sure people have their ways of discovering it nonetheless. Some groups and individuals are developing conscious self-willed software solutions. I'm referencing them. Is that not what 'life' which intelligence springs from fundamentally is? As will be true for AGI... Not programs that mimic human behavior or optimization algorithms.. Software solutions that are truly aware.

[eli_gottlieb]

>Given the attitudes of people in the space and beyond and lack of funding why shouldn't the more valuable and fundamental research be kept secret?

If it's secret, how do you know about it? If you don't have specific knowledge, how can you claim there is "fundamental AGI" research done in secret, as opposed to it just not being done, as all appearances indicate?

>It is being said that it's impossible...

Nobody who understands recent neuroscience claims any such thing is impossible. We just claim it hasn't been done in the lab yet.