person
Ben Goertzel
Founder of SingularityNET; AGI optimist
Long-time AGI proponent who coined 'artificial general intelligence' as a term of art. Runs SingularityNET, a decentralised AI platform. Argues safety comes from distribution of AI power, not concentration of it.
Profile
expertise
Deep technical
Sustained peer-reviewed contribution to ML, alignment, interpretability, or safety techniques. Could review a frontier paper.
Founded SingularityNET; long history of AGI research (OpenCog framework). Published extensively on artificial general intelligence theory. Less central to current frontier ML.
recognition
Field-leading
Widely known inside the AI and AI-safety community. Appears repeatedly in top venues, podcasts, or governance forums. Not a household name to outsiders.
Coined modern usage of 'AGI' as a research term. Recognised in AGI/transhumanist circles.
vintage
Symbolic era
Career started in the GOFAI / expert-systems / early-rationalist period. Vinge's 1993 Singularity, MIRI founded 2000, Bostrom and Yudkowsky writing.
OpenCog founded 2008; coined modern AGI usage early 2000s. Symbolic-era AGI advocate.
Hand-classified. See the board for the criteria and the full grid.
Strategy positions
Distributed buildersendorses
Keep many independent actors; concentration is the bigger riskArgues decentralising AGI development across many open actors is safer than concentration in one closed lab.
“I don't think you're actually making AGI safer by keeping it locked down and controlled only by a small elite group.”
Techno-optimismendorses
Technology and markets solve risks faster than regulation creates themArgues AGI by 2029 is plausible and expects a compassionate rather than hostile superintelligence.
Human level AGIs should be right on schedule for 2029, or perhaps even sooner.
Closest strategy neighbours
by jaccard overlapOther people whose strategy tags overlap with Ben Goertzel's. Overlap is on tag identity, not stance; opposites can show up if they reference the same tags.
Record last updated 2026-04-24.