Motivation for research

$$\gdef \sam #1 {\mathrm{softargmax}(#1)}$$ $$\gdef \vect #1 {\boldsymbol{#1}} $$ $$\gdef \matr #1 {\boldsymbol{#1}} $$ $$\gdef \E {\mathbb{E}} $$ $$\gdef \V {\mathbb{V}} $$ $$\gdef \R {\mathbb{R}} $$ $$\gdef \N {\mathbb{N}} $$ $$\gdef \relu #1 {\texttt{ReLU}(#1)} $$ $$\gdef \D {\,\mathrm{d}} $$ $$\gdef \deriv #1 #2 {\frac{\D #1}{\D #2}}$$ $$\gdef \pd #1 #2 {\frac{\partial #1}{\partial #2}}$$ $$\gdef \set #1 {\left\lbrace #1 \right\rbrace} $$

In the following, some motivation for AGI research: a scene from “Conversations with god” 2006 movie. See full movie for free in Youtube

Background: A person has lost his job and couldn’t get a new one because he was injured from recent car eccident. He had to evacuate his appartment since he couldn’t afford to pay his rent. So he built a tent in a camping site to sleep somewhere. Desperate from denied a job from so many emploiers, he starts to gather cans to gain some money. Then he picked some reserved food from a trash can. Spotted accidently by a young boy watching him eating it, he felt embaressed and turned away and cried. Next, while buying some cheap food at a shop, an old lady pittied him and completed the missing money he was lacked of. After some time he succeed to schedule a meeting for an interview in a radio station. He managed to get the job. After which he has celecbrating with his new friends from the camping site. However, due to some emabarcing encounter of him and a working secretary from the radio station with one of his friends, he realized he has to move on, and rented a 1-room apartment. Nevertheless, the unfortune came back to him, and his radio station bankrupted. If not enough, a girl he met in a bus traveling to his job and were having fun chatting during the ride, revealed that she was not interested in him romantically.

Devestated from the chain of events, he fell asleep deprassed.

The rest is a nice Hollywood-style success: his books being printed in large quantities and great sales. But the most important message is that it actually touched people, and changed their lives. Perhaps it feels like a spiritual awakening, where all the accumulated bad luck in his life was a deliberate divine plan to teach him a lesson.

The message for us is obvious: don’t sell your time and your soul for money and prosperity only. Life are much more full and satisfying when you do what is important to you and you love. Live with passion and higher goal!