On the other hand, i believe i have the first real implementation of an HTM that achieves what Jeff describes in his book. (The CLA does not – it is not hierarchical.) I’m still working on it, but it’s quite exciting to see it working the way it is.

Anyway, i’m starting to think now that GoiD was in fact the correct approach. Not only does it produce temporal data, but it also provides a dynamic environment where the actions of the agent can change the environment. This is something that at least MLComp doesn’t currently seem to be able to do, although i might follow up with them to see if they are interested in collaborating to provide such.

Geoffrey Hinton’s lab has done lots of work with the MNIST database of handwritten digits (and I’ve had some success following them on it), but it’s pretty limited and shallow. I know he’s also done work with motion-capture data and natural image patches, but I don’t know where those might be on the web.

And of course, MLComp (http://mlcomp.org/) has a big collection of datasets for narrow learning.

I don’t mind hearing your feedback on anything.

Regarding “I thought about it a lot”: I was just making the point that you don’t need to write software to understand the concepts behind it. You seem to believe that, and I was explaining why I think that is erroneous. I was just telling you what I had done because you asked.

I never said “I don’t need to have done anything”. I just said I don’t need to have done X to say Y. You seem to believe that doing is the only way of learning, and I have personally found it not true. I’ve worked with teams who spend years reading English and software, and writing only English, before writing the actual code. I see analysis as top down, and writing code as a later stage.

Thinking (and researching) is doing. I only told you what I’ve done because you wanted to know. If you find my ego a problem, I’ll just say that you are the one who has introduced these personal topics and now you don’t approve of my answers. If the topic is irrelevant, don’t judge me based on my answers.

You happen to think that thinking is not doing. Okay, whatever you think I guess we are at a standoff then. In such a case, the default behavior is to just ignore my resume and consider the ideas strictly on their merit.

Okay, on to the rest:

I’ve discovered that free software has nothing to do with Marxism. I have put a proof in a book. The biggest difference is that free software is about bits of science, and Marxism is about atoms. I have discovered free software works better for the free market than proprietary software. Marxism is actually more like proprietary software because both have too much control and strangle the innovation in the edge.

I don’t make my book freely available right now because it is not science. Some have described it as ramblings. I don’t think every 1 and 0 should be licensed the same way. I’m part of the free software movement, not the free music & ramblings movement. Anyway, this is another issue about me, and not about the topic at hand so I will just go on to your next point.

Your next point is that I’m writing all of this to make money. Another irrelevant personal discussion. I think that is laughable as making money on books today is incredibly long odds. I write this here because I expect most programmers do not want to read my book, and so I try to summarize the points to save them time.

I don’t believe my book will change the world. I think the emails I send around to programmers will do the same. I don’t expect today’s programmers to read the book. You can read it for free. I can charge and still be available for anyone who really wants to read it.

It is silly to think that I would go to the trouble to write these posts to get linkbacks to my blog from this tiny little blog. I can get 1,000s of hits for any post I write. I write here because I think you and the few others might be open to new ideas. I’ll make the trouble to talk to a handful of people although I’m realizing to focus more on larger audiences.

Fortunately, I’m using a few of the points I’m making in this mail in another mail to the LKML. I will assume that the mistakes you are making are ones will make as well. I also just added a sentence to my book’s page saying that every penny will be invested in free software.

I only said that saying Strong AI is like a Manhattan project is an analogy from very very high up. I was using lazy to apply to the analogy, not to you. It is paranoid to think I would conclude you are lazy from a random wrong analogy you have made.

My motivation is of no concern to you. I might even have multiple motivations. That is such an anti-scientific perspective. Finally, you don’t consider the obvious one: that I believe I know how to get robotic butlers faster, so it is just a matter of getting others to do some things. Why isn’t that a perfectly good justification? If you had a choice between a million dollars and pervasive robotics for everyone, which would you choose?

Furthermore, what about the idea that every penny I earn on the book will go into free software development? That giving me this bucks is just giving me some money to invest in making things happen faster. Does that fact change your opinion much? I didn’t tell you that before, but you never asked and it isn’t really any of your business. There are many ways to improve the world.

I am interested to know how much you judge me because you perceive arrogance and greed and that I might be a hypocrite. I think I’m none of that, but it is interesting to know as you are a potential customer. Your weirdnesses in your way of thinking, the wrong things you have concluded about me, is something I should think about.

Anyway, I diligently responded to all of your points. You again may not like my answers, but there is nothing I can do about it. I’ll just end by saying that I’m happy to keep going if you can focus more on technical things. Notice, I never ask about your qualifications or motivations. I’m doing my part to keep this focused.

While the gloves are off…

My favourite line is, “no, but i’ve thought about it a lot”. (Second best is, “i don’t need to have [actually done anything]…”.) Well, that settles it then. How did your resume to Microsoft read: “I’ve thought about software development a lot, so you should hire me.” Or, maybe Barnum and Bailey: “I’ve thought about lion taming a lot, give me center ring.” Or, Delta Airlines: “I’ve thought about flying airliners a lot, so i’ll take the NY to LA route, thanks.” No one cares what you’ve thought about Keith, only what you’ve done. And by your own admission, that’s nothing.

But your ego isn’t the only thing that’s only in your head. So is your book’s thesis. Theoretically it’s all flowery and nice: why can’t we all just share and get along? But in practice it’s about as useful as the Communist Manifesto. Every one should code what they can, and take what they need, right? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how that will turn out. And you have the gall to call me intellectually lazy? I suspect Ray Kurzweil thinks the same as me, which would explain his lukewarm response to your breathless open letter.

But i believe you already know this, which explains your outright hypocrisy. If it’s all so good for me to give away the code that i spend man-months writing, why can’t i download your book for free? It’s a social entreaty, is it not? It provides the “scientific” raison d’etre for FOSS. Why should i have to buy it? If you actually believed that your book had any chance at changing the world for the better, you’d give it away. You’re just out to make a buck, which is why you’re trolling blogs like mine looking for any reason to post a linkback to your own site.