Ben Goertzel (R), describes to the audience what “Sophia the Robot” (L) is made of during a discussion about the future of humanity in a demonstration of artificial intelligence (AI) by Hanson Robotics at the RISE Technology Conference in Hong Kong on July 12, 2017.

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“I don’t want to give up control of what I’m doing to venture capital firms,” Ben Goertzel said on the On The Margin podcast. “Because I think AGI is too important for that.”

Goertzel helped put the term “artificial general intelligence” on the map with an influential book, led the team behind the Sophia robot, and has spent decades trying to build a machine that can think. His bet now cuts against almost everyone racing toward the same goal: the most…