At the recent 2011 Transhumanism Meets Design Conference in New York City, Dr. Ben Goertzel addressed two key questions regarding artificial general intelligence (AGI): How can we design a world (virtual or physical) so that it supports ongoing learning and growth and ethical behavior? How can we design a mind so that it takes advantage of the affordances its world offers?

In an PhysOrg.com interview, Goertzel expands on these ideas. “When we fill the robot lab only with objects they can pick up, we’re eliminating a lot of the richness and flexibility a small child has,” he points out, for example.

Part 2 of the interview is here.