Pause for the Cause(s)
May 10th, 2007
I’m not a big believer in donating to “causes”–mainly because I’ve always believed my money is better spent furthering my interests rather than some charity whose organizers are probably dipping freely from the take anyway. But sometimes I come across organizations that just demand my support–the Electronic Frontier Foundation, for instance (even though their overwhelming interest in “privacy” is starting to look positively quaint).
The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence is another. SingInst is a wonderful organization actively working to bring about the Singularity Era through research into artificial intelligence and, sometimes, related forms of cognitive enhancement; the best way to ensure the existence of Friendly AI, after all–to avoid the Robot Apocalypse, in other words–is to actively research it and ensure that the creation of Machine Intelligence enhances human civilization rather than invalidates it.
SingInst is currently conducting a $400,000 matching challenge to collect funds for further research and to underwrite their further expansion in 2007. Peter Thiel, founder and former CEO of PayPal, currently on SIAI’s advisory board, is putting up $200K in matching funds! So far, the challenge has raked in $37,243 in cash–but that’s a long way to go to $400K…so if you have a few bucks to spare (I could only afford $25 at present, but may be able to spare more in the future), then why not pony up for a good cause? Trust me, in a decade or so, you’ll definitely get your money’s worth.
(As a side note, SIAI also has a complete online library of videos of speakers at last year’s Singularity Summit at Stanford University. Speakers include Douglas Hofstadter, Cory Doctorow, K. Eric Drexler, Ray Kurzweil [of course], and Nick Bostrom–so all you transers out there, get on over there and check it out!)
Also, the Encyclopedia of Life is looking to be flatout incredible. Witness the vast scope of its vision: to create a wiki-esque library of every single living thing that has ever walked the Earth, past or present. Take a look at some of the demonstration pages: the depth of information is amazing. They’re not looking for money, but they are looking for support…so sign up for their mailing list, if you have any interest in terrestrial lifeforms.It’s going to be an amazing site.
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