As a follow-on to the recent thread on purchasing research effectively, I thought it'd make sense to post the request for proposals for projects to be funded by Musk's $10M donation. LessWrong's been a place for discussing long-term AI safety and research for quite some time, so I'd be happy to see some applications come out of LW members.
Here's the full Request for Proposals.
If you have questions, feel free to ask them in the comments or to contact me!
Here's the email FLI has been sending around:
Initial proposals (300–1000 words) due March 1, 2015
The Future of Life Institute, based in Cambridge, MA and headed by Max Tegmark (MIT), is seeking proposals for research projects aimed to maximize the future societal benefit of artificial intelligence while avoiding potential hazards. Projects may fall in the fields of computer science, AI, machine learning, public policy, law, ethics, economics, or education and outreach. This 2015 grants competition will award funds totaling $6M USD.
This funding call is limited to research that explicitly focuses not on the standard goal of making AI more capable, but on making AI more robust and/or beneficial; for example, research could focus on making machine learning systems more interpretable, on making high-confidence assertions about AI systems' behavior, or on ensuring that autonomous systems fail gracefully. Funding priority will be given to research aimed at keeping AI robust and beneficial even if it comes to greatly supersede current capabilities, either by explicitly focusing on issues related to advanced future AI or by focusing on near-term problems, the solutions of which are likely to be important first steps toward long-term solutions.
Please do forward this email to any colleagues and mailing lists that you think would be appropriate.
Proposals
Before applying, please read the complete RFP and list of example topics, which can be found online along with the application form:
http://futureoflife.org/grants/large/initial
As explained there, most of the funding is for $100K–$500K project grants, which will each support a small group of collaborators on a focused research project with up to three years duration. For a list of suggested topics, see the complete RFP [1] and the Research Priorities document [2]. Initial proposals, which are intended to require merely a modest amount of preparation time, must be received on our website [1] on or before March 1, 2015.
Initial proposals should include a brief project summary, a draft budget, the principal investigator’s CV, and co-investigators’ brief biographies. After initial proposals are reviewed, some projects will advance to the next round, completing a Full Proposal by May 17, 2015. Public award recommendations will be made on or about July 1, 2015, and successful proposals will begin receiving funding in September 2015.
References and further resources
[1] Complete request for proposals and application form: http://futureoflife.org/grants/large/initial
[2] Research Priorities document: http://futureoflife.org/static/data/documents/research_priorities.pdf
[3] An open letter from AI scientists on research priorities for robust and beneficial AI: http://futureoflife.org/misc/open_letter
[4] Initial funding announcement: http://futureoflife.org/misc/AI
Questions about Project Grants: dewey@futureoflife.org
Media inquiries: tegmark@mit.edu
Good point, that makes sense.
I guess "can't choose the right one" wasn't actually my true rejection, rather I'm hesitating because I'm not sure whether this field is actually where my comparative advantage lies, and whether this is the kind of thing that I'd want to be doing. I do fine when it comes to vague philosophizing at the level of my original concept learning paper, but I'm much less certain of my ability to do actual rigorous technical work. Meanwhile I seem to be getting promising feedback of doing well on some other (non-technical) high-impact projects I've been pursuing.
Though I guess I could apply for the first stage of the grants anyway and decide later, since it doesn't commit me to anything yet...
What else are you considering?
I would advise that's only half the the equation though. You should also weight by how unique that contribution would be. We simply don't have enough people doing AGI work like concept formation. Not to place too much pressure, but if you don't work on this then it's not clear who would. It's an underfunded area academically (hence these grants are a great opportunity), and too long term to be a part of industrial research efforts...