A good point. The control group was of folks who made it through the initial screening but not the final screening, so, yes, there are differences. We explicitly discussed the possibility of randomizing admissions, but, for our first go, elected to admit the 25 people we most wanted, and to try randomizing some future events if the first worked well enough to warrant follow-ups (which it did). It is a bit of a hit to the data-gathering, but it wasn't growth potential as such that we were selecting for -- for example, younger applicants were less likely to have cool accomplishments and therefore less likely to get in, although they probably have more growth potential -- so there should still be evidence in the results.
Also, we marked down which not-admitted applicants were closest to the cut-off line (there were a number of close calls; I really wished we had more than 25 spaces), so we can gain a bit of data by seeing if they were similar to the minicamp group or to the rest of the controls.
Singularity Institute desperately needs someone who is not me who can write cognitive-science-based material. Someone smart, energetic, able to speak to popular audiences, and with an excellent command of the science. If you’ve been reading Less Wrong for the last few months, you probably just thought the same thing I did: “SIAI should hire Lukeprog!” To support Luke Muelhauser becoming a full-time Singularity Institute employee, please donate and mention Luke (e.g. “Yay for Luke!”) in the check memo or the comment field of your donation - or if you donate by a method that doesn’t allow you to leave a comment, tell Louie Helm (louie@intelligence.org) your donation was to help fund Luke.
Note that the Summer Challenge that doubles all donations will run until August 31st. (We're currently at $31,000 of $125,000.)
During his stint as a Singularity Institute Visiting Fellow, Luke has already:
As a full-time Singularity Institute employee, Luke could:
If you’d like to help us fund Luke Muehlhauser to do all that and probably more, please donate now and include the word “Luke” in the comment field. And if you donate before August 31st, your donation will be doubled as part of the 2011 Summer Singularity Challenge.