Thanks to the effort of our donors, the2012 Summer Singularity Challengehas been met! All $150,000 contributed will be matched dollar for dollar by our matching backers, raising a total of $300,000 to fund the Machine Intelligence Research Institute’€™s operations. We reached our goal near 6pm on July 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.

Thanks to the generosity of several major donors,^†every donation to the Machine Intelligence Research Institute made now until July 31, 2012 will be matched dollar-for-dollar, up to a total of $150,000!

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Now is your chance todouble your impactwhile helping us raise up to $300,000 to help fund金宝博娱乐 and stage the upcomingSingularity Summit… which you canregister for now!

Note: If you prefer to support rationality training, you are welcome toearmark your donationsfor “CFAR” (Center for Applied Rationality). Donations earmarked for CFAR willonlybe used for CFAR, and donationsnotearmarked for CFAR willonlybe used for Singularity research and outreach.

Since we published ourstrategic planin August 2011, we haveachieved most of the near-term goals outlined therein. Here are just afewexamples:

• We outlined theopen research problemsrelated to our work (Section 1.1).
• We recruited several moreresearch associatesand about a dozenremote researchers(Section 1.2e).
• We held our annualSingularity Summitand gained corporate sponsors for it (Section 2.1).
• We made progress in decision theory (example) via LessWrong.com and our research associates (Section 2.2b).
• We publishedHow to Run a Successful Less Wrong Meetup Group(Section 2.2d).
• We released pre-prints of several forthcoming research articles, includingHow Hard is Artificial Intelligence?,Intelligence Explosion: Evidence and Import, andThe Singularity and Machine Ethics(Section 2.3).
• Weredesignedour primary website (Section 2.6).
• We acquired $40,000/month in free Google Adwords advertising, to drive traffic to websites operated by the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (Section 2.6c).
• We began publishingmonthly progress reports(Section 2.9b).
• We built up the Center for Applied Rationality such that it should be able to spin off from the Machine Intelligence Research Institute later this year (Section 3.1).
• We created atransparency sectionon our website, where visitors can find our IRS 990 forms, and also several standard organizational policies, e.g. a conflict of interest policy, non-discrimination policy, etc (Section 3.2).

In the coming year, theMachine Intelligence Research Institute plans to do the following:

• Hold our annualSingularity Summit, this year in San Francisco!
• Spin off theCenter for Applied Rationalityas a separate organization focused on rationality training, so that the Machine Intelligence Research Institute can be focused more exclusively on Singularity research and outreach.
• Publish additional金宝博娱乐 on AI risk and Friendly AI.
• Eliezer will write an “Open Problems in Friendly AI” sequenceforLess Wrong.(For news on his rationality books, seehere.)
• FinishFacing the Singularity和发布的电子书版本Facing the SingularityandThe Sequences, 2006-2009.
• And much more! For details on what we might do with additional funding, seeHow to Purchase AI Risk Reduction.

If you’re planning to earmark your donation to CFAR (Center for Applied Rationality), here’s a preview ofwhat CFAR plans to do in the next year:

• Develop additional lessonsteaching the most important and useful parts of rationality. CFAR has already developed and testedover 18 hours of lessonsso far, including classes on how to evaluate evidence using Bayesianism, how to make more accurate predictions, how to be more efficient using economics, how to use thought experiments to better understand your own motivations, and much more.
• Run immersive rationality retreatsto teach from our curriculum and to connect aspiring rationalists with each other. CFAR ran pilot retreats in May and June. Participants in the May retreat called it “transformative” and “astonishing,” and the average response on the survey question, “Are you glad you came? (1-10)” was a 9.4. (We don’t have the June data yet, but people were similarly enthusiastic about that one.)
• Run SPARC, a camp on the advanced math of rationalityfor mathematically gifted high school students. CFAR has a stellar first-year class for SPARC 2012; most students admitted to the program placed in the top 50 on the USA Math Olympiad (or performed equivalently in a similar contest).
• Collect longitudinal data on the effects of rationality training, to improve our curriculum and to generate promising hypotheses to test and publish, in collaboration with other researchers. CFAR has already launched a one-year randomized controlled study tracking reasoning ability and various metrics of life success, using participants in our June minicamp and a control group.
• Develop apps and games about rationality, with the dual goals of (a) helping aspiring rationalists practice essential skills, and (b) making rationality fun and intriguing to a much wider audience. CFAR has two apps in beta testing: one training players to update their own beliefs the right amount after hearing other people’s beliefs, and another training players to calibrate their level of confidence in their own beliefs. CFAR is working with a developer on several more games training people to avoid cognitive biases.
• And more!

We appreciate your support for our high-impact work!188betapp , and seize a better than usual chance to move our work forward. Credit card transactions are securely processed using either PayPal or Google Checkout. If you have questions about donating, please contact Louie Helm at (510) 717-1477 or louie@www.gqpatrol.com.

† $150,000 of total matching funds has been provided by Jaan Tallinn, Tomer Kagan, Alexei Andreev, and Brandon Reinhart.

Past progress reports:April 2012,March 2012,February 2012,January 2012,2011年12月.

Here’s what the Machine Intelligence Research Institute did in May 2012:

• How to Purchase AI Risk Reduction: Luke wrotea series of postson how to purchase AI risk reduction, with cost estimates for many specific projects. Some projects are currently in place at SI; others can be launched if we are able to raise sufficient funding.
• Research articles: Luke continued to work with about a dozen collaborators on several developing research articles, including “Responses to Catastrophic AGI Risk,” mentionedhere.
• Other writings: Kaj Sotala, with help from Luke and many others, publishedHow to Run a Successful Less Wrong Meetup Group. Carl published several articles: (1)Utilitarianism, contractualism, and self-sacrifice, (2)Philosophers vs. economists on discounting, (3)Economic growth: more costly disasters, better prevention, and (4)What to eat during impact winter?Eliezer wroteAvoid Motivated Cognition. Luke posted part 2 of hisdialogue with Ben Goertzelabout AGI.
• Ongoing long-term projects于2012年奇点峰会:艾米继续工作. Michael continued to work on the Machine Intelligence Research Institute’s new primary website, new annual report, and new newsletter design. Louie and SI’s new executive assistant Ioven Fables are hard at work on organizational development and transparency (some of which will be apparent when the new website launches).
• Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR): CFAR团队继续取得进展的方向spinning off this rationality-centric organization, in keeping withSI’s strategic plan. We also held the first summer minicamp, which surpassed our expectations and was very positively received. (More details on this will be compiled later.)
• Meetings with advisors, supporters, and potential researchers:As usual, various SI staff met or spoke with dozens of advisors, supporters, and collaborators about how to build the existential risk community, how to mitigate AI risk, how to improve the Machine Intelligence Research Institute’s effectiveness, and other topics.
• And of course much more than is listed here!

Finally, we’d like to recognize ourmost active volunteersin May 2012: Matthew Fallshaw, Gerard McCusker, Frank Adamek, David Althaus, Tim Oertel, and Casey Pfluger. Thanks everyone! (And, our apologies if we forgot to name you!)

Past progress reports:March 2012,February 2012,January 2012,2011年12月.

Here’s what the Machine Intelligence Research Institute did in April 2012:

• SPARC: Several MIRI staff members are working in collaboration with SI research associate Paul Christiano and a few others to develop a rationality camp for high school students with exceptional mathematical ability (SPARC). This is related to our efforts to spin off a new rationality-focused organization, and it is also a major step forward in our efforts to locate elite young math talent that may be useful in our research efforts.
• Research articles: Luke publishedAI Risk Bibliography 2012. He is currently developing nearly a dozen other papers with a variety of co-authors. New SI research associateKaj Sotalahas two papers forthcoming in theInternational Journal of Machine Consciousness:Advantages of Artificial Intelligences, Uploads, and Digital MindsandCoalescing Minds: Brain Uploading-Related Group Mind Scenarios.
• Other articles: Luke publisheda dialoguewith AGI researcher Pei Wang and several more posts in theAI Risk and Opportunityseries. Luke also worked with Kaj Sotala to develop an instructional booklet for Less Wrong meetup group organizers, which is nearly complete.
• Ongoing long-term projects于2012年奇点峰会:艾米继续工作. Michael launched the newSingularity Summit website, continued to work on the Machine Intelligence Research Institute’s new primary website, new annual report, and new newsletter design. Luke uploaded several more volunteer-prepared translations ofFacing the Singularity. Luke also continued to build the Machine Intelligence Research Institute’s set of remote collaborators, who are hard at work converting the Machine Intelligence Research Institute’s research articles to a new template, hunting down predictions of AI, writing literature summaries on heuristics and biases, and more.
• Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR): “Rationality Group” now has a final name: the Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR). The CFAR team has been hard at work preparing for the upcomingrationality minicamps, as well as continuing to develop the overall strategy for the emerging organization.
• Meetings with advisors, supporters, and potential researchers:As usual, various SI staff met or spoke with dozens of advisors, supporters, and collaborators about how to build the existential risk community, how to mitigate AI risk, how to improve the Machine Intelligence Research Institute’s effectiveness, and other topics. Quixey co-founder and CEO Liron Shapira was added as an advisor.
• And of course much more than is listed here!

Finally, we’d like to recognize ourmost active volunteersin April 2012: Matthew Fallshaw, Gerard McCusker, Frank Adamek, David Althaus, Tim Oertel, Casey Pfluger, Paul Gentemann, and John Maxwell. Thanks everyone! (And, our apologies if we forgot to name you!)

Past progress reports:February 2012,January 2012,2011年12月.

Fun fact of the day:The Machine Intelligence Research Institute’s research fellows and research associates have more peer-reviewed publications forthcoming in 2012 than they had published in all past years combined.

Here’s what the Machine Intelligence Research Institute did in March 2012:

• Research articles: Luke and Anna released an updated draft ofIntelligence Explosion: Evidence and Import, and Luke and Louie released an updated draft ofThe Singularity and Machine Ethics. Luke submitted an article (co-authored with Nick Bostrom) toCommunications of the ACM— an article on Friendly AI. Machine Intelligence Research Institute research associate Joshua Fox released two forthcoming articles co-authored with (past Machine Intelligence Research Institute Visiting Fellow) Roman Yampolskiy:Safety Engineering for Artificial General IntelligenceandArtificial General Intelligence and the Human Mental Model.
• Other articles: Luke publishedThe AI Problem, with Solutions,How to Fix Science,Muehlhauser-Goertzel Dialogue Part 1, alist of journals that may publish articles on AI risk, and the first three posts in his seriesAI Risk and Opportunity: A Strategic Analysis. The Machine Intelligence Research Institute paid (past Visiting Fellow)Kaj Sotalato write most of a new instructional booklet for Less Wrong meetup group organizers, which should be published in the next month or two. Eliezer continued work on his new Bayes’ Theorem tutorial and other writing projects. Carl publishedUsing degrees of freedom to change the past for fun and profitandAre pain and pleasure equally energy efficient?
• Ongoing long-term projects于2012年奇点峰会:艾米继续工作. Michael continued to work on the Machine Intelligence Research Institute’s new primary website, new Summit website, new annual report, and new newsletter design. Louie continued to improve our accounting processes and also handled several legal and tax issues. Luke uploaded several more volunteer-prepared translations ofFacing the Singularity. Luke also continued to build the Machine Intelligence Research Institute’s set of remote collaborators, who are hard at work converting the Machine Intelligence Research Institute’s research articles to a new template, hunting down predictions of AI, writing literature summaries on heuristics and biases, and more.
• Rationality Group: Per ourstrategic plan, we will launch this new “Rationality Group” organization soon, so that the Machine Intelligence Research Institute can focus on its efforts on activities related to AI risk. In March, Rationality Group (led by Anna) contracted withJulia Galef和迈克尔·史密斯努力推出机构anization. Eliezer continued to help Rationality Group develop and test its lessons. Rationality Group has begun offeringprizesfor suggesting exercises for developing rationality skills, starting with the skills of “Be Specific” and “Check Consequentialism.” Rationality Group has also announced threeMinicamps on Rationality and Awesomeness, for May 11-13, June 22-24, and July 21-28.Apply now.
• Meetings with advisors, supporters, and potential researchers:As usual, various SI staff met or spoke with dozens of advisors, supporters, and collaborators about how to build the existential risk community, how to mitigate AI risk, how to improve the Machine Intelligence Research Institute’s effectiveness, and other topics. This included a two-week visit byNick Beckstead, who worked with us on AI risk reduction strategy.
• And of course much more than is listed here!

Finally, we’d like to recognize ourmost active volunteersin March 2012: Matthew Fallshaw, Gerard McCusker, Frank Adamek, and David Althaus. Thanks everyone! (And, our apologies if we forgot to name you!)

Past progress reports:January 2012,2011年12月.

Here’s what the Machine Intelligence Research Institute did in February 2012:

• Winter fundraiser completed: Thanks to the generous contributions of our supporters, our latest winter fundraiser was a success, raisingmuch morethan our target of $100,000!
• Research articles: Luke and Anna published theSingularity Summit 2011 Workshop Reportand released a draft of their articleIntelligence Explosion: Evidence and Import, forthcoming in Springer’sThe Singularity Hypothesis. Luke also worked on an article forthcoming inCommunications of the ACM.
• Other articles: Luke published a continuously updated list ofForthcoming and desired articles on AI risk. For Less Wrong, Carl publishedFeed the Spinoff Heuristic, and Luke publishedMy Algorithm for Beating Procrastination,A brief tutorial on preferences in AI, andGet Curious. Carl also published 4 articles on ethical careers for the80,000 Hours blog(later posts will discuss optimal philanthropy and existential risks):How hard is it to become the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom?,Entrepreneurship: a game of poker, not roulette,Software engineering: Britain vs. Silicon Valley, and5 ways to be misled by salary rankings.
• Ongoing long-term projects于2012年奇点峰会:艾米继续工作. Michael continued to work on the Machine Intelligence Research Institute’s new website, and uploaded all past Singularity Summit videos to YouTube. Louie continued to improve our accounting processes and also handled several legal and tax issues. Luke uploaded several volunteer-prepared translations ofFacing the Singularity, and also apodcastfor this online mini-book.
• Grant awarded: The Machine Intelligence Research Institute awarded philosopherRachael Briggsa $20,000 grant to write a paper on Eliezer Yudkowsky’stimeless decision theory. Two of Rachael’s papers —Distorted ReflectionandDecision-Theoretic Paradoxes as Voting Paradoxes— have previously been selected as among the 10 best philosophy papers of the year byThe Philosopher’s Annual.
• Rationality Group: Anna and Eliezer continued to lead the development of a new rationality education organization, temporarily called “Rationality Group.” Per ourstrategic plan, we will launch this new organization soon, so that the Machine Intelligence Research Institute can focus on its efforts on activities related to AI risk. In February our Rationality Group team worked on curriculum development with several potential long-term hires, developed several rationality lessons which they tested (weekly) on small groups and iterated in response to feedback, spoke to advisors about how to build the organization and gather fundraising, and much more. The team also produced one example rationality lesson on sunk costs, includinga presentation and exercise booklets. Note that Rationality Group iscurrently hiringcurriculum developers, a remote executive assistant, and others, soapply hereif you’re interested!
• Meetings with advisors, supporters, and potential researchers:As usual, various SI staff met or spoke with dozens of advisors, supporters, and collaborators about how to build the existential risk community, how to mitigate AI risk, how to improve the Machine Intelligence Research Institute’s effectiveness, and other topics. We also met with several potential researchers to gauge their interest and abilities. Carl spent two weeks in Oxford visiting theFuture of Humanity Instituteand working with the researchers there.
• Outsourcing: On Louie’s (sound) advice, the Machine Intelligence Research Institute is undergoing a labor transition such that most of the work we do (in hours) will eventually be performed not by our core staff but by (mostly remote) hourly contractors and volunteers, for exampleremote researchers, remoteLaTeX workers, remote editors, andremote assistants. This shift provides numerous benefits, including (1) involving the broader community more directly in our work, (2) providing jobs for aspiring rationalists, and (3) freeing up our core staff to do the things that, due to accumulated rare expertise, only they can do.
• And of course much more than is listed here!

Finally, we’d like to recognize ourmost active volunteersin February 2012: Brian Rabkin, Cameron Taylor, Mitchell Owen, Gerard McCusker, Alex Richard, Andrew Homan, Vincent Vu, Gabriel Sztorc, Paul Gentemann, John Maxwell, and David Althaus. Thanks everyone! (And, our apologies if we forgot to name you!)

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 Machine Intelligence Research Institute receives is powerful support for ourmission— ensuring that the creation of smarter-than-human intelligence (superintelligence) benefits human society. We welcome donorscontacting usto 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.