Call for Volunteers at Global Future 2045
This post is on behalf of Amy Willey, former MIRI employee who is Volunteer Coordinator for GF 2045.
One of the most exciting futurist events this year will be Global Future 2045, in New York City on June 15-16.
They need volunteers! You can apply to be a volunteer here.
Amy Willey, the volunteer coordinator, previously organized Singularity Summit. She is fun to work with! Volunteering at Global Future 2045 is an opportunity to meet many interesting scientists and futurists.
Think Twice: A Response to Kevin Kelly on ‘Thinkism’
I wrote a blog post responding to Kevin Kelly that I'm fairly happy about. It summarizes some of the reasons why I figure that superintelligence is likely to be a fairly big deal. If you read it, please post your comments here.
Questions on SI Research
Hello LessWrong,
As one of my assignments at the Singularity Institute (SI), I am writing a research FAQ answering the most frequently asked questions regarding the Singularity Institute's research program.
For a short summary of what SI is about, see our concise summary.
Here are some examples of questions I'm currently planning to include:
1) who conducts research at SI?
2) what are the specific research topics being investigated?
3) what is the history of SI's research program?
4) where does SI see its research program in 5, 10, and 20 years?
5) what other organizations conduct research similar to SI?
Please submit other questions that come to mind below. Unfortunately, due to limited time, we cannot answer every question posed to us. However, I hope to answer some of the questions that receive the most upvotes. Thank you for your participation!
Sudden Future Singularity (SFS) as soon as 8.7 million years in the future?
No, not the kind of Singularity usually discussed here... I'm referring to the possibility of phantom energy-driven rips in the cosmos caused by accelerating expansion, or "sudden future singularities of pressure". (Technically: "a momentary infinite peak in the tidal forces of the universe.") A recent paper by Ghodsi & Hendri shows that cosmic microwave background, baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO), and type 1a supernovae data is consistent with the possibility of a sudden future singularity as soon as 8.7 million years from now.
"Cosmological tests of sudden future singularities"
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1201.6661v1.pdf
As I understand it, the authors are not saying that a SFS is likely 8.7 million years from now, just possible. This puts a dampener on the notion that the only plausible scenario of cosmological breakdown is Heat Death.
Here's another paper that outlines other exotic cosmological singularities which have been under discussion in the cosmology community for the past decade, and the behavior of pointlike particles and strings as they approach such singularities.
A Brief Summary of Recent Happenings at the Singularity Institute
The Singularity Summit was a huge success. We raised over $300,000, one-third of that a donation from Jaan Tallinn, another third from a variety of generous donors who gave during or immediately after the Summit, and a third from ticket sales. We have roughly $500,000 in the bank, while annual payroll expenses are about $350,000. We almost have enough money to make it through the next year without adding any research staff, though we definitely would like to add additional researchers. In the meantime, our (unpaid) Research Associates team has been growing, and is tackling a variety of projects.
Since the Singularity Summit in October, our President Michael Vassar moved on to help found Personalized Medicine, a company we are all excited about, and Luke Muehlhauser was appointed Executive Director. Luke answered questions about these changes and our future plans in a recent video Q&A. I encourage you to watch it, and submit additional questions you may have about the Singularity Institute.
We have seven staff at this time: Luke, Michael Anissimov, Anna Salamon, Carl Shulman, Amy Willey, Louie Helm, and Eliezer Yudkowsky. Our internal collaboration has increased, we're keeping work logs, and we regularly eat dinner together. It's becoming more of a family.
What are we all doing? Luke and Michael are working on a new website for the Singularity Institute. Amy and Luke are working hard to expand the Singularity Summit brand and bring the Summit to "the next level." Anna and Eliezer are building a curriculum for the new Rationality Org, which we hope to spin off as a separate organization from Singularity Institute sometime next year. Luke, Anna, and Carl have been working on a variety of research papers, and Carl has also been working with the fast-growing "optimal philanthropy" movement, which is now poised to direct substantial funds over the next few years to reducing existential risks. Louie is working on donor relations, fundraising, recruiting, operations, and has also contributed to some of our forthcoming research articles.
In the coming year, we look forward to improving communication and transparency with our supporters, and to increasing the rate of our published research output.
People with Experience in Wikipedia Editing?
Hi all,
At the Singularity Institute we're looking for a volunteer with experience making edits to Wikipedia. The quality of some Wikipedia pages related to our subject matter could use improvement, but we would like to consult with someone who has an editing background on the way to go about it.
Please get in touch with me at michael@intelligence.org.
Thank you!
Comprehensive List of All Singularity Summit Talks and Video Links
Here is an index of all Singularity Summit speeches.
Summit 2006
- Todd Davies, Tyler Emerson, and Peter Thiel. Introduction to the Singularity Summit.
- Ray Kurzweil. The Singularity: a hard or soft takeoff?
- Douglas Hofstadter. Trying to muse rationally about the Singularity scenario.
- Nick Bostrom. Artificial Intelligence and existential risks.
- Sebastian Thrun. Toward human-level intelligence in autonomous cars.
- Cory Doctorow. Singularity or Dark Age?.
- K. Eric Drexler. Productive Nanosystems: Toward a Super-Exponential Threshold in Physical Technology.
- Max More. Cognitive and Emotional Singularities: Will Superintelligence come with Superwisdom?
- Christine Peterson. Bringing Humanity and the Biosphere through the Singularity
- John Smart. Searching for the Big Picture: Systems Theories of Accelerating Change
- Eliezer Yudkowsky. The Human Importance of the Intelligence Explosion.
- Bill McKibben. Being good enough.
- Ray Kurzweil. Follow up.
- Panel Discussion and Q&A.
- Panel Discussion and Q&A pt. 2.
Summit 2007
- Tyler Emerson & Peter Thiel. Welcome and introduction.
- Rodney Brooks. The Singularity: A Period Not An Event.
- Eliezer Yudkowsky. Introducing the "Singularity": Three Major Schools of Thought.
- Barney Pell. Pathways to Advanced General Intelligence: Architecture, Development, and Funding.
- Wendell Wallach. Superstition and Forgetfulness - Two Essentials for Artificial General Intelligence.
- Barney Pell, Wendell Wallach, Sam Adams. First panel discussion.
- Jamais Cascio. Metaverse Singularity.
- Stephen M. Omohundro. The Nature of Self-Improving Artificial Intelligence.
- Peter Voss. Improved intelligence, improved life.
- Stephen M. Omohundro, Peter Voss. Second panel discussion.
- Neil Jacobstein. Innovative Applications of Early Stage AI.
- Ben Goertzel. Nine Years to a Positive Singularity - If We Really, Really Try.
- Paul Saffo. Machines of Loving Grace: Anticipating Advanced AI.
- Neil Jacobstein, Ben Goertzel, Paul Saffo. Third panel discussion.
- Peter Norvig. The history and future of technological change.
- J. Storrs Hall. Asimov's laws of robotics -- revised.
- Peter Thiel. Financial markets and the Singularity.
- Charles L. Harper, Jr. Superintelligence, the "Dilemma of Power," and the transformation of desire.
- J. Storrs Hall, Peter Thiel, Charles L. Harper, Jr. Third panel discussion.
- Steve Jurvetson. Dichotomy of designed and evolutionary paths to AI futures.
- Christine L. Peterson. Preparing for bizarreness: open source physical security.
- James Hughes. Waiting for the Great Leap...Forward?
- Eliezer Yudkowsky. The Challenge of Friendly AI.
- Christine L. Peterson, James Hughes, Eliezer Yudkowsky. A dialogue with Ray Kurzweil.
Summit 2008
- Vernor Vinge and Bob Pisani. Conversation on the Singularity.
- Esther Dyson. 23andme and personal genomics.
- James Miller. Societal reactions to the Singularity.
- Eric Baum. AI and the problem of understanding.
- Dharmendra Modha. IBM's research into Whole Brain Emulation.
- Ben Goertzel. OpenCog -- an open source AGI project.
- Marshall Brain. Robotics and structural unemployment.
- Cynthia Breazeal. Social robots.
- Ray Kurzweil, Glen Zorpette and John Horgan. Debate on the Singularity.
- Pete Estep. The InnerSpace Foundation.
- Neil Gershenfeld. Alternate models of computing.
- Peter Diamandis. History of the X Prize Foundation and future X Prizes.
- Ray Kurzweil. Exponential progress in information technologies.
- Justin Rattner. Intel and the continuous of Moore's law.
- Nova Spivack. Collective intelligence and the emerging global brain.
Summit 2009
- Michael Vassar. Introduction.
- Anna Salamon. Shaping the intelligence explosion.
- Anders Sandberg. Technical roadmap for whole brain emulation.
- Randal Koene. The time is now: as a species we need whole brain emulation.
- Itamar Arel. Technological convergence leading to artificial general intelligence.
- Ben Goertzel. Pathways to beneficial artificial general intelligence.
- Stuart Hameroff. Neural substrates of consciousness and the 'conscious pilot' model.
- David Chalmers. Simulation and the singularity.
- Gary Drescher. Choice machines, causality, and cooperation.
- Ed Boyden. Synthetic neurobiology: optically engineering the brain to augment its function.
- Marcus Hutter. Foundations of intelligent agents.
- William Dickens. Cognitive ability: past and future enhancements and implications.
- Ray Kurzweil. The ubiquity and predictability of the exponential growth of information technology.
- Bela Nagy. More than Moore: comparing forecasts of technological progress.
- Robin Hanson. How does society identify experts, and when does it work?
- Panel: Future of scientific method.
- Gregory Benford. Artificial biological selection for longevity.
- Ray Kurzweil. Critics of the singularity.
- Brad Templeton. The finger of AI: Automated electrical vehicles and oil independence.
- Gary Marcus. The fallibility and improvability of the human mind.
- Peter Thiel. Macroeconomics and singularity.
- Aubrey de Grey. The Singularity and the Methuselarity: similarities and differences.
- Thiel, Yudkowsky & de Grey panel: Changing the world.
- Anna Salamon. How much it matters to know what matters: A back of the envelope calculation.
- Gary Wolf. The petaflop macroscope.
- Eliezer Yudkowsky. Cognitive biases and giant risks.
- Jurgen Schmidhuber. Compression progress: The algorithmic principle behind curiosity and creativity.
- Thiel, Rose & Gorenberg Panel: Venture capitalism.
- Michael Nielsen. Quantum computing: What it is, what it is not, what we have yet to learn.
- Michael Nielsen. Collaborative networks in scientific discovery.
- Stephen Wolfram. Conversation on the singularity.
Summit 2010
- Michael Vassar. The Darwinian method.
- Gregory Stock. Evolution of post-human intelligence.
- Ray Kurzweil. The mind and how to build one.
- Ben Goertzel. AI against aging.
- Steven Mann. Humanistic intelligence augmentation and mediation.
- Mandayam Srinivasan. Enhancing our bodies and evolving our brains.
- Brian Litt. The past, present and future of brain machine interfaces.
- Demis Hassabis. Combining systems neuroscience and machine learning: a new approach to AGI.
- Terry Sejnowski. Reverse-engineering brains is within reach.
- Dennis Bray. What cells can do that robots can't.
- Terry Sejnowski/Dennis Bray debate: Will we soon realistically emulate biological systems?.
- Ramez Naam. The digital biome.
- Lance Becker. Modifying the boundary between life and death.
- Ellen Heber-Katz. The MRL mouse - how it regenerates and how we might do the same.
- Shane Legg. Universal measures of intelligence.
- John Tooby. Can discovering the design principles governing natural intelligence unleash breakthroughs in AI?.
- Tooby, Goertzel, Yudkowsky & Legg panel. Narrow and General Intelligence.
- David Hanson. David Hanson: Why Characters Are Key to Friendly A.I..
- Irene Pepperberg. Irene Pepperberg: Nonhuman Intelligence: Where we are and where we're headed.
- James Randi. Is there such a thing as scientific consensus?
Summit 2011
- Ray Kurzweil. From Eliza to Watson to passing the Turing Test.
- Stephen Badylak. Regenerative medicine: possibilities and potential.
- Sonia Arrison. 100 Plus: how the coming age of longevity will change everything, from careers and relationships to family and faith.
- Peter Thiel. Back to the future.
- James McLurkin. The future of robotics is swarms: why a thousand robots are better than one.
- Michael Shermer. Social Singularity: transitioning from civilization 1.0 to 2.0.
- Jason Silva. The 'Undivided Mind' — science and imagination.
- Stephen Wolfram. Computation and the future of mankind.
- Dmitry Itskov. Project 'Immortality 2045' -- Russian experience.
- Christof Koch. The neurobiology and mathematics of consciousness.
- Eliezer Yudkowsky. Open problems in friendly artificial intelligence.
- Max Tegmark. The future of life: a cosmic perspective.
- Alexander Wissner-Gross. Planetary-scale intelligence.
- Sharon Bertsch McGrayne. A History of Bayes theorem.
- David Brin. So you want to make gods. Now why would that bother anybody?
- Tyler Cowen. The Great Stagnation.
- Tyler Cowen & Michael Vassar. Debate on the Great Stagnation.
- John Mauldin. The endgame meets The millennium wave — why the economic crisis will be history as we create the future.
- Riley Crane. Rethinking communication.
- Dileep George and Scott Brown. From planes to brains: building AI the Wright way.
- Jaan Tallinn. Balancing the trichotomy: individual vs. society vs. universe.
- David Ferrucci. Watson AI perceptions.
- Dan Cerutti. Commercializing Watson.
- Ken Jennings. The human brain in Jeopardy: computers that 'think'.
Rationality Minicamp Photos Online
Some photos from Rationality Minicamp, which was run by Luke Muehlhauser, Anna Salamon, and Divia Melwani are now online:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/66605555@N00/sets/72157627675418194/
Interview with Singularity Institute Research Fellow Luke Muehlhauser
Yesterday I sat down with Lukeprog for a few hours and we produced this ten-page interview for the Singularity Institute blog. This interview contains information about the Singularity Institute's technical research program and recent staff changes that hasn't been announced anywhere else! We hope you find it informative.
Singularity Institute Strategic Plan 2011
Thanks to the hard work and cooperation of Singularity Institute staff and volunteers, especially Louie Helm and Luke Muehlhauser (lukeprog), we now have a Strategic Plan, which outlines the near-term goals and vision of the Institute, and concrete actions we can take to fulfill those goals.
http://singinst.org/blog/2011/08/26/singularity-institute-strategic-plan-2011/
We welcome your feedback. You can send any comments to institute@intelligence.org.
The release of this Strategic Plan is part of an overall effort to increase transparency at Singularity Institute.
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