Peter Voss

Peter Voss is a Pioneer in Artificial Intelligence who in 2001 coined the term ‘AGI’ (Artificial General Intelligence) with fellow AI luminaries. He is a Serial Entrepreneur, Engineer, Inventor, and a Pioneer in Artificial Intelligence. He is the Founder, CEO, and Chief Scientist at Aigo.ai and AGI Innovations.

He is an entrepreneur with a background in electronics, computer systems, business, and technical software. He is also concerned with the intersection between artificial intelligence software and the human condition as conceived by cognitive science, philosophy, psychology, and ethics.

He was the Founder and CEO of Adaptive Artificial Intelligence between 2002 and 2017. In 2008, he launched Smart Action Company to commercialize the highly advanced conversational AI technology developed by Adaptive AI. The company offered world-leading hosted call center automation, an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) with a brain.

Peter ran the company until 2013, when he started a new development company, AGI Innovations, to develop the next-generation conversational AI engine.

AGI Innovations (AGi3) picked up the development of their intelligence engine where Adaptive AI left off. With a team of AI psychologists and engineers, they significantly enhanced the scope and cognitive abilities of their natural language technology.

Out came a very powerful personal assistant prototype called Aigo, founded by Peter in 2017 and where he serves as the CEO and Chief Scientist. Aigo’s cognitive architecture provides highly intelligent, hyper-personalized assistants that have a deep understanding of natural language, have short- and long-term memory, learn interactively, use context, and are able to reason and hold meaningful ongoing conversations. AGi3 continues to expand and extend Aigo’s core cognitive abilities. Watch Aigo.ai: Elder Companion Demo.

Born in Germany, he moved at age 12 to South Africa. He worked as a production electrician for diesel generating sets and worked his way up to test engineer, and was then promoted to work as an electronics engineer, designing and building large static inverters, and fell in love with software.

He started Electronic Designs in 1979 to custom-build microprocessor-controlled systems for industrial applications. Three years later, he started a computer systems company, Ohio Group, to provide turnkey solutions to medium-sized businesses. His first major success was developing a comprehensive ERP package.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) refers to a type of software that organizations use to manage day-to-day business activities such as accounting, procurement, project management, risk management and compliance, and supply chain operations. After 13 years Peter took the company public in 1987, employing a staff of 400. He sold the company in 1992 and moved to the United States in 1995.

Peter believes that integrating insights from the following areas of cognitive science are crucial for rapid progress in Artificial Intelligence:

• Philosophy/ epistemology — understanding the true nature of knowledge.
• Cognitive psychology (including developmental & psychometric) for analysis of cognition — and especially — general conceptual intelligence.
• Computer science — self-modifying systems, combining new connectionist pattern manipulation techniques with “traditional” AI engineering.

Peter’s other big passion is for exploring what he calls Optimal Living: Maximizing both the quantity & quality of life. He sees personal responsibility and optimizing knowledge acquisition as key. Specific interests include:

• Rationality, as a means for knowledge. He’s mainly sympathetic to the philosophy of Objectivism and has done a lot of work on developing a rational approach to (personal & social) ethics.
• Health (quality): physical, financial, cognitive, and emotional (passions, meaningful relationships, art appreciation, etc). Psychology: IQ & EQ.
• Longevity (quantity): general research, CRON (calorie restriction), and cryonics.
• Environment: economic, social, and political systems conducive to Optimal Living.

These interests logically lead to an interest in Futurism, in technology for improving life — overcoming limits to personal growth & improvement. The transhumanist philosophy of Extropianism best embodies this quest. Specific technologies that seem to hold the most promise include AI, Nanotechnology, and various health & longevity approaches mentioned above.

Peter authored Essentials of General Intelligence: The direct path to AGI, Calorie Poisoning: Civilization’s Exploding Killer Disease, True Morality – Rational Principles for Optimal Living, The Nature of Freewill, Advanced Intelligence: SI, IA, and the Global Brain, Why Machines will become Hyper-Intelligent before Humans do, SIAI’s Guidelines for building “Friendly” AI, Metaphysics — it’s simpler than you think, Description versus Pre-scription — and other Ethical Confusions, Longevity — Major Factors Determining Life-Span, and Extropy NOW!

Watch Increased Intelligence, Improved Life, Peter Voss – Singularity Institute Interview Series, and First Annual Colloquium on the Law of Transhuman Persons: Voss & Yudkowsky. Watch Peter Voss on Artificial General Intelligence and Bill Faloon and NEOHUMAN #68:: Peter Voss: Philosophy, Futurism, and Artificial General Intelligence.

Listen to Peter Voss — Artificial General Intelligence and AI-led Hyper-Personalization in Customer Service.

Read Improved Intelligence Yields Improved Morality, Beyond Chatbots: Hyper-Personalized, Intelligent Assistants, and An Interview with AI Entrepreneur Peter Voss. Read his contributions on Medium.

See photos of Peter over the years.

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