Hi, Alan. Thanks for posting your ideas in the Fractal Future Forum! 
I like your approach to combine VR, AI, and neural interfacing (let’s call it NI for now). You seem to have a circular/spiral scheme in mind with VR → AI → NI → VR+ → …
However, I see that each of those technologies has the potential to accelerate the development in every other field:
- General efficiency increase by using VR as improved work- and design environment
- General efficiency by using AI as agents or assistants
- General efficiency increase by using NI to interact better with technology of any kind
So, I have more of a triangular shape in mind, where each vertex supports each other vertex. But you are probably right that starting with VR is probably the easiest and most promising route to go.
- What’s the exact goal of this project?
- How will it be profitable?
- What kind of technology will it use?
- What’s the targeted user base?
- What kind of team should work on the core project?
- Are other teams already working on similar projects?
- How can PR backlashes like those that happened to Second Life be avoided?
- How will it improve the world?
I’m asking these questions from the point of view of a potential investor. If you want to convince them, you need to learn how they think. I don’t claim to know how they think, since I’m merely imagining how I would think if I was a rich investor. Nevertheless, doing some research on the psychology of investors might be a worthwhile project in itself.
Raising funds is a generally difficult problem, but it’s a special case of selling an idea or product. The discipline which is concerned about selling things is called “marketing” – and we are aware that we actually need
But before you can sell your idea to investors, you should be able to at least convince fellow transhumanists that your idea is cool and worthwhile. Your current description of the project sounds good, but it feels too general to be actually engaging. I know that you’ve written some very fascinating stories, and I think that’s generally the right way to go to get people enthusiastic about futuristic projects. Not saying that you need to post a story in the F3, but writing more details about your ideas would make it clearer what you actually want to achieve with it. Why should people care about the idea?
Anyway, I’ve also been thinking about NI recently. I’d really like to read your thoughts about