San Francisco-based tech firm Sentient is building an open-source platform for AI research and development.
Announced on Tuesday, its mission is to create an environment where researchers can work together to achieve open Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Sentient has raised USD$85 million in seed funding to build its platform, hire AI research and blockchain engineering experts and find partnerships with both academic institutions and players in the industry.
It’s pulled in some big names into its seed round as well, a few of which include Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Pantera Capital and Framework Ventures.
Vancouver-based tech company Verses AI (CBOE Canada: VERS) (OTCQB: VRSSF) defines the progression of artificially intelligent systems as possessing three development categories. The first category is the artificial intelligence embodied presently by programs like ChatGPT. OpenAI and other companies have designed these technologies to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence. A few examples include visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and language translation.
The technology’s promise extends beyond that to include AGI, which refers to AI systems with the ability to understand, learn, and apply knowledge across a wide range of tasks at a level comparable to human cognition.
The next step beyond AGI is Superintelligent AI, which surpasses human intelligence across all domains. This has the potential to revolutionize industries, scientific research, and everyday life by solving complex problems.
Despite their promise, however, these developmental steps have caused no end of anxiety.
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Concerns over AI caused corporate upheaval at OpenAI
“The rapid advancement of AI has the potential to transform every aspect of our lives, but the concentration of power in the hands of a few centralized entities poses significant risks,” Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon and Sentient core contributor, said.
“By building an open platform for AGI development, we aim to ensure that the benefits of AI are distributed equitably and that its development aligns with the interests of humanity as a whole.”
Safety concerns of AI sparked strife at OpenAI this year. OpenAI faced internal and external pressures to address these critical issues as global leaders and industry stakeholders sounded the alarm.
The resulting turmoil saw significant changes in leadership and strategic direction. These aimed to ensure that the organization’s AI development practices were responsible and beneficial to society.
Pramod Viswanath, a professor of engineering at Princeton University and Sentient core contributor, emphasizes a balanced approach to AI development. He aims to distribute power fairly by respecting property rights and aligning incentives, rather than pursuing strict decentralization.
“Even governments can agree that this kind of concentration of AI in a few companies is really dangerous,” Viswanath said. “On the other side, AI is a technology that many people can contribute to.”
Other investors participating in the seed fundraising round include Ethereal, Robot Ventures, Symbolic Capital, Dao5, and others.
Verses AI is a sponsor of Mugglehead news coverage
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