Have you ever dreamt of the proper human like AI? Perhaps you always wanted to have a C3PO as your best friend but the tech development was never sufficient? Well, General AI Challenge aims to make your dream come true.
General AI Challenge is a series of events, organised by Good AI, a Czech Republic based organisation. The challenge starts at the beginning of 2017 and it’s aim is to help us move a step closer towards creating general AI.
Good AI want to move away from creating extremely specialised AI, or the so-called narrow AI. The existing AI has just pre-established skillsets and is good only for the tasks it’s been designed for. Thus, the reusability is extremely limited and implementation of existing AI solution demands a lot of additional work. That’s why Good AI wants to abandon that type of AI in favour of bringing us closer to the creation of general AI, which is the complete opposite. It’ll be capable of developing common sense. Instead of being programmed to perform certain tasks, it’ll be able to learn and think creatively. Therefore, it won’t be limited but will be able to work in different domains.
Till the end of Jan there’s a brainstorming session and some groundwork done that will lead up to the definition of the needed algorithms. With all the feedback and data gathered then, they’ll launch Stage 1, called Gradual learning: Requirements. Participants will suggest specifications and a set of evaluation tasks for gradual learning.
That’s when the real fun begins. Early in 2017, sometime during the first quarter of 2017, a series of challenges will start. They’ll have different topics such as programming or solving AI safety problems.
At the moment there’s no strict working plan for the challenge beyond stage 1 and the beginning of Stage 2, when the participants get a chance to implement their ideas from Stage 1. Depending on how fast the progress is made and the milestones are reached, each stage might take from just a couple of months up to a few years. That doesn’t mean that a few stages can’t run simultaneously
General AI Challenge is open for everyone, not just AI specialists. Both individuals and teams can sign up. If you’re a programmer, computer scientist, mathematician and anyone who thinks they can contribute to the project, there’s a spot for you. General AI Challenge is not just for the tech savvy.
What if you are sceptical of general AI and are afraid of Skynet and the robot revolution? If you’re into social sciences, there’s a place for you on the team. After all there’s much more to AI than just programming and Good AI realises that.
The prizes for the General AI Challenge amount to at least 5 million USD, with plans of crowdfunding for more funds.
