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Should this be the Singularity Institute?
Indeed.
It's as if people are being deliberately mischievous by writing both "the SIAI" (which should be "SIAI"), and on the other hand, "Singularity Institute" (which should be "the Singularity Institute").
Luke is probably confused by the fact that the organization is often called "Singinst" by its members. But that expression grammatically functions as a name, like "SIAI" (or, now, "SI"), and thus does not take the definite article.
The full name, however, ("the Singularity Institute") functions grammatically as a description, and thus does take the definite article. Compare: the United Nations, the Brookings Institution, the Institute for Advanced Study, the London School of Economics, the Center for Inquiry, the National Football League.
Abbrevations differ as to whether they function as names or descriptions: IAS, but the UN. SI(AI) is like the former, not the latter.
If the abbreviation is an acronym (i.e. pronounced as a word rather than a string of letter names), then it will function as a name: ACORN, not "the ACORN" (even though, in full, it's "the Association...").
I think Luke may have been trying to take after Singularity University, which doesn't use "the", because that seems to be the convention for universities? But yes, I agree the lack of a definite article here is grating. It creates impression that writer of sentence is Russian.
Specifically, it's the convention for university names following the formula "X University" (as opposed to "University of/for/in X"). These should be thought of as analogous to geographic place-names (which is what they basically are): "Hamilton County", "Bikini Atoll", "Harvard University", etc. ("Singularity University" would be analogous to "Treasure Island".)
There are a few rare exceptions: The George Washington University, The Ohio State University (both articles often "mistakenly" omitted!), the Bering Strait.
Anyway, why in the world would SI want to "take after" SU? The risk of confusion between these two organizations is large enough as it is.
The main thing was that he used both in the same article. I assumed that the Singularity Institute was correct because I've seen it more frequently, but consistency is the big thing.
Things are not always that simple: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2172
I didn't make any claim about "simplicity", and nor does anything in the link contradict anything I wrote. Indeed, it confirms my point: some things take "the", others don't, and it isn't a matter of on-the-spot whim.
Note that I did not propose any general rule for determining which category something falls into without prior knowledge. My comment about descriptions versus names does not have any predictive implications. I could have talked about "weak" and "strong" instead.
There have been quite a few posts on Language Log about which proper names are preceded by the, e.g. http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2172
In the time of John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt, "Yosemite" was apparently "The Yosemite"
I've been curious as to when it dropped its article.
The singinst.org About Us/Our Mission page uses the article, as do some other places on the site. The Strategic Plan ("UPDATE: AUGUST 2011") consistently uses no article.
I believe the Strategic Plan was authored by Luke, and hence the criticism also applies there.
Dropping "the" is a conscious, intentional decision by everyone at Singularity Institute as of several months ago and pre-dates Luke's involvement (but post-dates your visit last summer).
That only changes the target of my criticism (now all of you, instead of just Luke), not the criticism itself, obviously.
The "the" isn't droppable, because it was never part of the name in the first place: it was never "The Singularity Institute"; but rather "the Singularity Institute". That is, the article is a part of the contextual grammar. Attempting to "drop" it would be like me declaring that "komponisto" must always be followed by plural verb forms.
(Some organizations do have "The" in the name itself, e.g. The Heritage Foundation. They could decide to drop the "The", and then their logo would say "Heritage Foundation". But one would still write "at the Heritage Foundation"; one just wouldn't write "at The Heritage Foundation".)
I don't know of any example of an "Institute" where people don't use an article in such a context -- which suggests that any such example that might exist isn't high-status enough for me to have heard of it. Even the one that I thought might be an example -- the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute -- also has a grammatical "the"!
You guys should want to be like IAS and MSRI (after all, you'd rather the people at those places be working for you instead!) I don't understand the rationale for this gratuitous eccentricity.
Indeed - "A dinner at Singularity Institute" would be pronounced "A dinner at ; Singularity Institute", with an awkward pause inserted due to the obviously missing article. Contrast with "A dinner at the Singularity Institute".
Military units are the only counterexample I can think of, but using "the" is correct for them too, I think. Glancing at wikipedia, it is inconsistent within articles,
and
Perhaps Singularity Institute is an aspiring paramilitary force.
Would you explain why?
In testimony to Congress about 15 years ago, the director of the CIA used "CIA" without the definite article, which certainly suggests that he preferred it to be referred to that way. How it is referred to by the public however is probably not up to the leaders of the CIA but rather up to the media and maybe bloggers and tweeters. Note that the American Broadcasting Corporation, the National Broadcasting Corporation, the Citizens Broadcasting Service and the Public Broadcasting Service are able to decide how they will be referred to by the public (because they have unparalleled access to the public's ear) and the have decided they'd like to be referred to without the definite article.
All that suggests that there is some advantage to being referred to without the definite article. (Perhaps the definite article has the effect of "distancing" the referent in the mind of the listener.)
Did you miss this comment? Abbreviations are treated separately from the corresponding full names. One doesn't say "the ABC", but one does say "the American Broadcasting Company". Et cetera.
Likewise, "SIAI" (not "the SIAI"), but "the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence".
One may be either "at CIA" (especially if you're an insider) or "at the CIA", but as far as I know one is always "at the Central Intelligence Agency".