Thanks to generous contributions by our donors, we are only $11,840 away from fulfilling our $100,000 goal for the 2010 Singularity Research Challenge. For every dollar you contribute to SIAI, another dollar is contributed by our matching donors, who have pledged to match all contributions made before February 28th up to $100,000. That means that this Sunday is your final chance to donate for maximum impact.

Funds from the challenge campaign will be used to support all SIAI activities: our core staff, the Singularity Summit, the Visiting Fellows program, and more. Donors can earmark their funds for specific grant proposals, many of which are targeted towards academic paper-writing, or just contribute to our general fund. The grants system makes it easier to bring new researchers into the fold on a part-time basis, widening the pool of thinkers producing quality work on Artificial Intelligence risks and other topics relevant to SIAI’s interests. It also provides transparency so our donor community can directly evaluate the impact of their contributions.

Human-level and smarter Artificial Intelligence will likely have huge impacts on humanity, but only a tiny number of researchers are working to understand how to ensure those impacts are good ones. The role of the Singularity Institute is to fill that void, bringing scholarship and science to bear on challenging questions. Instead of just letting the chips fall where they may, help the Singularity Institute increase the probability of a positive Singularity by contributing financially to our research effort. We depend completely on donors like you for all funding.

2010 marks the 10th year since SIAI’s founding. With your help, SIAI will still exist in 2015, 2020, 2025… however long it takes to get to a positive Singularity. Thank you for your support!