From time to time, probably every week, I have this strong desire to work on “strong AI” (i.e. an artificial intelligence that can think and reason like a human). It might be too naive to say, but I believe with big enough computation power and right virtual environments with rules of “life” in it, it might be possible to create a strong AI right now.
I have some drafts over how I would approach this topic myself if I had time and resources.
This urge in some sense is similar to the urge to procreate physically, with similar feelings.
Recently, it is also interconnected with the idea of making money, since if a promising step towards self-learning artificial agents can be made, then it could bring potentially good money.
Every time I have been recently stopping myself from starting very actively working on it. While this is very exciting for both “AI creation” reasons and possible benefits for my scientific career progression, I have strongly trying to focus on less-strong but still useful applications of AI. In essence, if I could help, using existing technology, solving “£10 problem” (be it for logistics, medical or business of any other sort) for 10,000,000 people and they will be willing to pay for that those £10, then it is very easy to become a multi-millionaire and do good with less-strong AI.