Another source of perspective is the fact that Eliezer has made research into engineering safety mechanisms into advanced machine agents a seriously substantial movement, and he did this by blogging about rationality for two years, and then writing a Harry Potter fanfiction over the course of the succeeding five years.
SIAI started before the rationality blogging. Vernor Vinge warned about AI causing the end of the human race back in 1993.
I have difficulty accepting that a substantial portion of FAI researchers were drawn to the subject by HPMOR.
(Of course, FAI researchers, LWers and HPMOR fans are distinct groups of people)
Information on the history of the MIRI from 2002 through 2006 is sparse, as gleaned from the Wikipedia page on the organization. As the SIAI in 2006, they successfully raised $200,000 as part of a donation campaign, with $100,000 matched as a donation by Peter Thiel. In the years since, the MIRI seems to have at least once annually held fundraisers that turn out just as successful. "The Sequences" were scarcely started in 2006, so I don't know if Peter Thiel got wind of Eliezer's ideas and organization on SL4, or Overcoming Bias, or what. Anyway,...
[Contains No HPMOR Spoliers]
[http://hpmor.com/notes/119/](http://hpmor.com/notes/119/)
I was at first confused by Eliezer's requests at the end of Ch. 119. I missed his Author's Notes, which his explains his rationale behind them. I thought I would share in case others missed it, especially because readers on LessWrong may have more elite or broader networks to help Eliezer achieve his new goals.
Eliezer has several other projects he might be interested in. Learn more by clicking the link.