Recently, the Singularity Institute has offered a variety of jobs, opportunities, and prizes!

We are hiring:

• Remote researchers (writing skill not required)
• Rationality curriculum designers
• Rationality teachers
• Workshop consultants
• Remote editors
• Remote HTML/WordPress workers
• Executive assistants

We would also like:

• Volunteer advisors
• General volunteers

We are also giving out $500 prizes for suggested rationality exercises: details here.

Finally, a few other updates:

• We are running 3 more rationality minicamps! The dates are May 11-13, June 22-24, and July 21-28. Details here.
• Did you know that the Singularity Institute’s research fellows and research associates have more peer-reviewed publications forthcoming in 2012 than they had published in all past years combined? See our latest monthly progress report.
• Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is being updated again, and has a snazzy new website, HPMoR.com.

Thanks to our dedicated supporters, we met our goal for our 2011-2012 Winter Fundraiser. Thank you!

The fundraiser ran for 56 days, from December 27, 2011 to February 20, 2012.

We exceeded our $100K goal, raising a total of $143,048.84 from 101 individual donors.

Every donation that the Singularity Institute receives is powerful support for our mission — ensuring that the creation of smarter-than-human intelligence (superintelligence) benefits human society. We welcome donors contacting us to learn more about our pursuit of this mission and our continued expansion.

Keep your eye on this blog for regular progress reports from our executive director.

Today is the last day to contribute to the 2011 Singularity Institute Winter Fundraiser. Please contribute, so we can we can hire more full-time researchers to make progress formalizing and solving open problems in the mathematics, decision theory, and cognitive science of AI risk research, bringing mankind closer to a beneficial Singularity. Thank you for your support!

Help us raise $100,000 that will go towards funding a website redesign, new research papers, and staging a bigger and better Singularity Summit 2012 in San Francisco.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE MORE RELEVANT THAN EVER

Recent books like Machine Ethics from Cambridge University Press and Robot Ethics from MIT Press, along with the U.S. military-funded research that resulted in Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots show that the world is waking up to the challenges of building safe and ethical AI. But these projects focus on limited AI applications and fail to address the most important concern: how to ensure that smarter-than-human AI benefits humanity. The Singularity Institute has been working on that problem longer than anybody, a full decade before the Singularity landed on the cover of TIME magazine.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN 2011

2011 was our biggest year yet. Since the year began, we have:

• Held our annual Singularity Summit in New York City, with more than 900 in attendance. Speakers included inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, economist Tyler Cowen, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Skeptic publisher Michael Shermer, Mathematica and WolframAlpha creator Stephen Wolfram, neuroscientist Christof Koch, MIT physicist Max Tegmark, and famed Jeopardy! contestant Ken Jennings.
• Held a smaller Singularity Summit in Salt Lake City.
• Held a one-week Rationality Minicamp and a ten-week Rationality Boot Camp.
• Created the Research Associates program, which currently has 7 researchers coordinating with Singularity Institute.
• Published our Singularity FAQ, IntelligenceExplosion.com, and Friendly-AI.com.
• Wrote three chapters for Springer’s upcoming volume The Singularity Hypothesis, along with four other research papers.
• Began work on a new, clearer website design with lots of new content, which should go live Q1 2012.
• Began outlining open problems in Singularity research to help outside collaborators better understand our research priorities.

FUTURE PLANS YOU CAN HELP SUPPORT

In the coming year, we plan to do the following:

• Hold our annual Singularity Summit, in San Francisco this year.
• Improve organizational transparency by creating a simpler, easier-to-use website that includes Singularity Institute planning and policy documents.
• Publish a document of open research problems in Singularity Research, to clarify the research space and encourage other researchers to contribute to our mission.
• Add additional skilled researchers to our Research Associates program.
• Publish a well-researched document making the case for existential risk reduction as optimal philanthropy.
• Diversify our funding sources by applying for targeted grants and advertising our affinity credit card program.

We appreciate your support for our high-impact work.

Follow the progress of our fundraiser at http://singinst.org/2011winterfundraiser.

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 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.

See them all at our YouTube channel.

More than 500 photos are also online at our Flickr account.

Singularity Institute is now accepting job applications for four positions: Executive Assistant, Communications Director, Grants Manager, and Research Fellow.

We are also accepting applications to our Visiting Fellows program, which has previously hosted over 50 graduate students and other visiting researchers.

Thanks to the effort of our donors, the 2011 Summer Singularity Challenge has been met! All $125,000 contributed will be matched dollar for dollar by our matching backers, raising a total of $250,000 to fund the Singularity Institute’s operations. We reached our goal two days early, near midnight of August 29th.

On behalf of our staff, volunteers, and entire community, I want to personally thank everyone who donated. Your dollars make the difference.

Here’s to a better future for the human species.

Singularity Institute has prepared a Strategic Plan to concisely describe our near-term goals, vision, and concrete actions in pursuit of those goals and vision. We welcome commentary from our supporter community on the plan. Please send any comments to institute@singinst.org. Click on the image below to see the plan:

‘THE FUTURE OF TECHNOLOGY’
SINGULARITY SUMMIT 2011
AUGUST 20-21
RMIT UNIVERSITY Melbourne

In just nine days, leading scientists, inventors and philosophers will gather in Melbourne to discuss the upcoming ‘intelligence explosion’ that many now refer to as ‘The Singularity’- a technological breakthrough that promises to eclipse previous computing developments with the creation of super-human machines.

If present trends are to continue, computers will have more advanced and powerful ‘brains’ than humans within 25 years; the result will be a further explosion of computer power and other technologies such as biotechnology, nanotechnology and health technology beyond our current ability to predict.

The ‘Singularity Summit Australia’ — a part of National Science Week - is an unprecedented opportunity to engage with today’s leading experts on emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics, nanotechnology and brain-computer interfaces - right in Melbourne.

As a pre-summit launch, the Australian premiere of documentary ‘Transcendent Man’ — featuring leading futurist, singularity advocate and recent Time Magazine cover star ‘Ray Kurzweil’ — will be held at Nova Cinemas, Carlton on August 19.

The screening will also feature a prerecorded address to Australia from Ray Kurzweil and producer Barry Ptolemy, and a Q&A session with documentary participants and Internationally renowned Artificial Intelligence (AI) experts — Dr. Ben Goertzel, Dr. Steve Omohundro and Dr. Hugo de Garis.

The highly successful 2010 Singularity Summit Australia drew over a hundred local, interstate and international enthusiasts to hear first-rate speakers from a range of fields.

The 2011 Summit again offers a stellar line-up, including leading Artificial Intelligence experts Dr. Ben Goertzel and Professor Steve Omohundro, popular scientist Dr. Lawrence Krauss and renowned philosopher of consciousness Dr. David Chalmers. This year’s summit will also feature demonstrations of recent robotics advances by Professor Raymond Jarvis and others.

The summit will explore the important ethical and philosophical dimensions of the Singularity — whilst sharing the very latest scientific and technological breakthroughs.

There is simply no better way to glimpse the future of these exciting technologies. Besides talks and demonstrations, panels will offer the opportunity to interact with the speakers and to contribute to the conversation about these important issues.

Seating is limited, so Secure your tickets for the 2011 Summit Here >>

The conference will be held at Casey Plaza at RMIT.

http://summit2011.singinst.org.au/

Speakers and subjects include:
David Chalmers Leading Philosopher of Consciousness “The Singularity – A Philosophical Analysis”
Lawrence Krauss - Leading physicist and best-selling author of “The Physics of Star Trek” - “The Future of Life in the Universe”
Ben Goertzel - Renowned AI researcher and leader of the OpenCog project – “AI Roadmaps”
Steve Omohundro - Renowned AI researcher - “Minds Making Minds: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity”
Ray Jarvis – “The Envy of Roboticists - the Future of AI in the Material World”
Alan Hájek – “A Plea for the Improbable”
Ian Robinson – “Rationality & Transhumanism”
Kevin B. Korb – “Bayesian Artificial Intelligence”
Ben Goertzel Leading AI researcher – “Artificial General Intelligence”
James Newton-Thomas Machine Intelligence Engineer – “Advances in Science and Technology”
Burkard Polster – “The Problem With Probability”
David Dowe - Artificial Intelligence - “Bayesian/Algorithmic) Information theory, one- and two-part compression, and measures of intelligence”
and many more…

This conference is brought to you by Humanity+ @ Melbourne (Victoria, Australia). Humanity+ explores how society might use and profit from a variety of creative and innovative thought.

Join in an exciting weekend as we explore the surprising future. See you there!

We’ve put together a new website focused on the intelligence explosion concept: IntelligenceExplosion.com. The site is a ‘landing page’ that provides an easy introduction to the topic for laymen and researchers alike.

Also see Nick Bostrom’s landing pages for anthropics, the simulation argument, and existential risk.

A Conversation About the Future
with Ray Kurzweil, Deepak Chopra and others
at a Movie Theater Near You

Join Ray Kurzweil in your local movie theater on August 3, 2011 at 8:00pm ET/ 7:00pm CT/ 6:00pm MT and 8:00pm PT as he gives a special presentation on accelerating technology and its effects on our future, followed by an all-star panel as they discuss the future of humanity, including the merger of man and machine and the potential to live forever! Plus, exclusively for the first time in 500 nationwide movie theaters, extended excerpts from the acclaimed film, Transcendent Man!

Transcendent Man Live with Ray Kurzweil: A Conversation About the Future is coming to a movie theater near you Wednesday, August 3rd in a LIVE cinema event. Limited seats available –— buy your tickets today, watch the trailer, and get more information: http://www.fathomevents.com/originals/event/transcendentman.aspx.

Featuring Ray Kurzweil, Deepak Chopra, filmmaker Barry Ptolemy, Apple Inc. cofounder Steve Wozniak, physicist Michio Kaku, technology entrepreneur Tan Le, and inventor Dean Kamen. With pre-recorded remarks from former Vice President Al Gore, Suzanne Somers, Quincy Jones, Bill Maher, Elon Musk and others.

Be a part of the discussion! Submit a question in advance (to be answered by participants on event night) on the Transcendent Man Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/TranscendentMan or Twitter — http://www.twitter.com (hashtag: #tmlive).

The Singularity Institute is proud to announce the expansion of our research efforts with our new Research Associates program!

Research associates are chosen for their excellent thinking ability and their passion for our core mission. Research associates are not salaried staff, but we encourage their Friendly AI-related research outputs by, for example, covering their travel costs for conferences at which they present academic work relevant to our mission.

Our first three research associates are:

Daniel Dewey, an AI researcher, holds a B.S. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University. He is presenting his paper ‘Learning What to Value‘ at the AGI-11 conference this August.

Vladimir Nesov, a decision theory researcher, holds an M.S. in applied mathematics and physics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. He helped Wei Dai develop updateless decision theory, in pursuit of one of the Singularity Institute core research goals: that of developing a ‘reflective decision theory.’

Peter de Blanc, an AI researcher, holds an M.A. in mathematics from Temple University. He has written several papers on goal systems for decision-theoretic agents, including ‘Convergence of Expected Utility for Universal AI‘ and ‘Ontological Crises in Artificial Agents’ Value Systems.’

We’re excited to welcome Peter, Vladimir, and Daniel to our team!

The Singularity Summit 2011, coming up this October 15-16 at the 92nd St. Y in New York, is now up on Facebook, so you can select “attending” if you are planning to attend, and invite your friends. Here’s the link:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=219221991452728

Thank you for helping us promote the event on your blog, Twitter, videos, magazines, and so on! If you post the event on your blog, email me and I’ll add you to our “buzz” page.

The press release for Singularity Summit 2011 is live!

Dates:
October 15-16, 2011

Location:
92nd St. Y, 1395 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY

You can register today here:
http://www.singularitysummit.com/registration.

Current speakers are here:
http://www.singularitysummit.com/program

New York, NY — This October 15-16th in New York City, a TED-style conference gathering innovators from science, industry, and the public will discuss IBM’s ‘Watson’ computer and other exciting developments in emerging technologies. Keynote speakers at Singularity Summit 2011 include Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings and famed futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil. After losing to an IBM computer in Jeopardy!, Jennings wrote, “Just as factory jobs were eliminated in the 20th century by new assembly-line robots, Brad and I were the first knowledge-industry workers put out of work by the new generation of ‘thinking’ machines. ‘Quiz show contestant’ may be the first job made redundant by Watson, but I’m sure it won’t be the last.”

In February, Watson defeated two human champions in Jeopardy!, the game show famous for its mind-bending trivia questions. Surprising millions of TV viewers, Watson took down champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter for the $1 million first prize. Facing defeat on the final show, competitor Ken Jennings jokingly wrote in parentheses on his last answer: “I for one welcome our new computer overlords.” Besides Watson, the Singularity Summit 2011 will feature speakers on robotics, nanotechnology, biotechnology, futurism, and other cutting-edge technologies, and is the only conference to focus on the technological Singularity.

Responding to Watson’s victory, leading computer scientist Ray Kurzweil said, “Watson is a stunning example of the growing ability of computers to successfully invade this supposedly unique attribute of human intelligence.” In Kurzweil’s view, the combination of language understanding and pattern recognition that Watson displays would make its descendants “far superior to a human”. Kurzweil is known for predicting computers whose conversations will be indistinguishable from people by 2029.

Beyond artificial intelligence, the Singularity Summit will also focus on high-tech and where it is going. Economist Tyler Cowen will examine the economic impacts of emerging technologies. Cowen argued in his recent book The Great Stagnation that modern society is on a technological plateau where “a lot of our major innovations are springing up in sectors where a lot of work is done by machines, not by human beings.” Tech entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel, who sits on the board of directors of Facebook, will share his thoughts on innovation and jumpstarting the economy.

Other speakers include MIT cosmologist Max Tegmark, Allen Brain Institute chief scientist Christof Koch, co-founder of Skype Jaan Tallinn, robotics professors James McLurkin and Robin Murphy, Bionic Builders host Casey Pieretti, the MIT Media Lab’s Riley Crane, MIT polymath Alexander Wissner-Gross, filmmaker and television personality Jason Silva, and Singularity Institute artificial intelligence researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky.

Open conference registration is at http://www.singularitysummit.com/registration.

Coming up this June 4-5 in Salt Lake City! Register now in the lower right hand corner of the site.

The Summit will begin with Michael Vassar discussing the strange time-lag between technological invention and mainstream adoption. Deepa Kulkarni will share her story of the doctors who told her that her lost fingertip couldn’t be regained, and how she researched a known but little-used procedure for tissue regeneration. Jaan Tallinn, a founding engineer of Skype, will Skype in to speak on the lessons of his career. Dr. Zheng Cui will present his discovery of a white blood cell transfusion with a 100% success rate for cancer treatment in mice; and his collaborator Dr. Dipnarine Maharaj will talk about the clinical trial of this and other transfusion therapy at his Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Treatment Facility. After lunch, Ray Kurzweil will join us via telepresence to share his vision of the future of artificial intelligence and of mankind’s fusion with machines. Paypal Co-Founder and Founder’s Fund Partner Luke Nosek will discuss genomics investing and Halcyon Molecular’s vision of DNA sequencing. Khan Academy President Shantanu Sinha will explain how his nonprofit is using technology to revolutionize the education system. And finally Aubrey de Grey, the Chief Science Officer at the SENS Foundation, will conclude with his view of how technology can and should cure aging. We all hope to see you there soon!

A list of those who contributed more than $1,000 to the Singularity Institute in the last few years has been posted. Please inform our list maintainer if there are any omissions. Here are the top five donors from recent years:

Thiel Foundation $1,100,000
Jaan Tallinn $100,000
Brian Cartmell $100,000
Rick Schwall $82,000
Edwin Evans $35,000

The Singularity Institute has published a Singularity FAQ, which gives brief answers to common questions about the Singularity, and also reading recommendations.

Topics covered include the three types of Singularity, different paths to the Singularity, the consequences of the Singularity, and Friendly AI.

TIME has announced its 2011 TIME 100 Poll. It asks readers to “cast your votes for the leaders, artists, innovators, icons and heroes that you think are the most influential people in the world.” The Top 100 will be included in TIME’s annual TIME 100 special edition. We encourage you to vote for Ray Kurzweil to draw more public attention towards the Singularity.

As of 5:00 p.m. PDT, ranking at 31, Ray Kurzweil is just above Steve Jobs. Coming in at 199 and 200: Charlie Sheen and Snooki.

Voting is open through April 14, 2011, limited to one vote per nominee per computer per day. To vote: click on the link below, click on the person you wish to vote for (or against), choose “Yes” or “No” (influential or not), and click Submit. You can also share your choice on Facebook or Twitter.

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2058044_2061021_2061023,00.html

There is a screening of Transcendent Man, a documentary on Ray Kurzweil, this April 14th in San Francisco. Tickets are available at www.transcendentman.com.

The Singularity Institute has been featured on charity sorter Philanthroper, which was founded and is operated by Gizmodo contributor Mark Wilson. There’s also a feature article on Gizmodo that brought us a lot of exposure today. Help us leverage this by donating just $1 at the site! Every dollar will be matched by SIAI donors up to $1,000.

The service used to donate is MyPayy, which can only be set up with a United States bank account. It takes a few minutes to sign up, so please take the time. In some cases you can’t donate until the bank account is verified, which takes 1-2 business days. If that is the case, please donate during the weekend, when this campaign will continue to run.

Who:
Michael Vassar, President of SIAI; Eliezer Yudkowsky, Senior Research Fellow
What:
A talk about SIAI’s activities and why we pursue the research and education we do.
Where:
NYU
Room 216
Vanderbilt Hall
40 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012
When:
6-8PM Thursday, March 3rd

Naturally for talks at this time, there will be free pizza, wine, and soda. After the talks there will be a small reception at a nearby bar. Please attend if you are in the area, to show your support!

The translation can be accessed here. The original is also available.

Thanks to the effort of our donors, the Tallinn-Evans Singularity Challenge has been met! All $125,000 contributed will be matched dollar for dollar by Jaan Tallinn and Edwin Evans, raising a total of $250,000 to fund the Singularity Institute’s operations in 2011. On behalf of our staff, volunteers, and entire community, I want to personally thank everyone who donated. Keep watching this blog throughout the year for updates on our activity, and sign up for our mailing list if you haven’t yet.

Here’s to a better future for the human species.

We are preparing a donor page to provide a place for everyone who donated to share some information about themselves if they wish, including their name, location, and a quote about why they donate to the Singularity Institute. If you would like to be included in our public list, please email me.

Again, thank you. The Singularity Institute depends entirely on contributions from individual donors to exist. Money is indeed the unit of caring, and one of the easiest ways that anyone can contribute directly to the success of the Singularity Institute. Another important way you can help is by plugging us into your networks, so please email us if you want to help.

If you’re interested in connecting with other Singularity Institute supporters, we encourage joining our group on Facebook. There are also local Less Wrong meetups in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and London.

Thanks to the generosity of two major donors; Jaan Tallinn, a founder of Skype and Ambient Sound Investments, and Edwin Evans, CEO of the mobile applications startup Quinly, every contribution to the Singularity Institute up until January 20, 2010 will be matched dollar-for-dollar, up to a total of $125,000.

Interested in optimal philanthropy — that is, maximizing the future expected benefit to humanity per charitable dollar spent? The technological creation of greater-than-human intelligence has the potential to unleash an “intelligence explosion” as intelligent systems design still more sophisticated successors. This dynamic could transform our world as greatly as the advent of human intelligence has already transformed the Earth, for better or for worse. Thinking rationally about these prospects and working to encourage a favorable outcome offers an extraordinary chance to make a difference. The Singularity Institute exists to do so through its research, the Singularity Summit, and public education.

We support both direct engagements with the issues as well as the improvements in methodology and rationality needed to make better progress. Through our Visiting Fellows program, researchers from undergrads to Ph.Ds pursue questions on the foundations of Artificial Intelligence and related topics in two-to-three month stints. Our Resident Faculty, up to four researchers from three last year, pursues long-term projects, including AI research, a literature review, and a book on rationality, the first draft of which was just completed. Singularity Institute researchers and representatives gave over a dozen presentations at half a dozen conferences in 2010. Our Singularity Summit conference in San Francisco was a great success, bringing together over 600 attendees and 22 top scientists and other speakers to explore cutting-edge issues in technology and science.

We are pleased to receive donation matching support this year from Edwin Evans of the United States, a long-time Singularity Institute donor, and Jaan Tallinn of Estonia, a more recent donor and supporter. Jaan recently gave a talk on the Singularity and his life at a entrepreneurial group in Finland. Here’s what Jaan has to say about us:

“We became the dominant species on this planet by being the most intelligent species around. This century we are going to cede that crown to machines. After we do that, it will be them steering history rather than us. Since we have only one shot at getting the transition right, the importance of SIAI’s work cannot be overestimated. Not finding any organisation to take up this challenge as seriously as SIAI on my side of the planet, I conclude that it’s worth following them across 10 time zones.”
– Jaan Tallinn, Singularity Institute donor

Make a lasting impact on the long-term future of humanity today — make a donation to the Singularity Institute. For more detailed information on our projects and work, contact us at institute@singinst.org.