Growing up in southwest Ireland, surrounded by mother nature, medieval castles and cathedrals, SingularityNET’s chief operating officer, Janet Adams, lived a charmed childhood. She was surrounded by strong women from all walks of life, but her biggest inspiration came from the cinema — Sarah Connor in “The Terminator.”
Little did she know at the time that this would be a pivotal foreshadowing moment for her future career.
“Sarah Connor was an incredible action hero who was never sexualized. It was never about her being pretty or falling in love,” Adams says.
At school, it was her chemistry teacher — one of the few teachers who wasn’t a nun — who early on identified her as a “scientific thinker” and instilled in her a love for science.
“My education bred a love and passion for science, and it was Sarah Conner who inspired me to achieve as a woman. To be the leader, not the follower, the subservient or the assistant,” Adams explains.
Adams became a hero in her own right, as a single mom, putting herself through three science degrees, learning to program, ride horses, drive a forklift truck and master martial arts.
And now, she has become one of the world’s leading women in artificial general intelligence (AGI), working alongside the very man who popularized the term, Ben Goertzel. In a not-too-distant future, AI systems will surpass human-level intelligence, and Adams and Gortzel are working to decentralize it using blockchain.
Adams believes that the AGI that was science fiction in the 1980s is now only one to three years away. SingularityNET is already working on sci-fi-like concepts such as using AI to find cures for diseases, developing three-foot-tall humanoid robots to serve as educational and service assistants and decentralized finance agents that autonomously analyze markets and refine trading strategies.
When AI agents reproduce
The project is even experimenting with AI agent reproduction, through a process they’ve coined as “agent fusion.”
“In fusion, agents can actually ‘mate’ to produce offspring agents that combine traits from their ‘parents,’ using genetic algorithms and random mutations. These child agents can inherit strengths like improved prediction accuracy or social engagement abilities, creating a dynamic, evolving ecosystem of AI minds,” Adams says.
“We’re also developing financial structures that let parent agents allocate tokens to their offspring for trading, creating a kind of economic relationship between generations of AI. It might sound like science fiction, but it’s part of building a decentralized AGI that can grow, adapt and evolve in an open, community-driven way.”
“It will be able to create itself, program itself, create humanoid robots of all kinds,” she explains.
Janet Adams – COO of SingularityNET: Our Advanced Neural-Symbolic Artificial Intelligence Will Dominate & Disrupt Everything
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ℹ️ Get more info on Zarqa: https://t.co/vFX8tBC2gy#AI #agi #SingularityNET #janetadams… pic.twitter.com/bTaf8pwIEp— Brian Rose, Founder & Host of London Real (@LondonRealTV) April 20, 2023
AI and humans will intertwine
Will AI become sentient? Adams thinks so.
“There’s a good chance if they’re fed and bred with the right ethics, and if they’re born into a caring, loving environment such as ours, they will love us as their esteemed ancestors. They will look up to us and want to learn our creativity, compassion and nurturing.”
“AI will definitely break out of biological classifications with new silicon-based life forms, and probably silicon and carbon combined life forms. It will be a higher classification than biological. They will have their own place in the fossil record,” Adams adds.
She also believes AI and humans will co-mingle, which is a trans-humanist concept.
“We’ll have robotic parts and upgrades for our organs and bones as they expire. We’ll become more siliconized as humans as we intermingle. We’ll have friends and deep relationships with our fellow AIs.”
Adams discovered her passion for AI through the evolutionary sciences. “I could see how we’re at the very front of evolution, and the next step has to be technology-driven. I’ve always wanted us to move forward as a species and lead from the front.”
Big banking to blockchain
A big and bold thinker, Adams held her fascination with evolution alongside a strong spirit for empowerment and ethics.
She developed an interest in computer science after completing a Master of Science in Petroleum Geosciences in 1995 and landed in IT-systems testing roles at British Telecom and GE Capital.
She was entrenched in the financial and banking sector from 1995 to 2020, where she held…
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