05/01/2012 - Machine Morality Addressed in New York Times Op-Ed by Colin Allen
From the New York Times Opinionator blog:
A robot walks into a bar and says, “I’ll have a screwdriver.” A bad joke, indeed. But even less funny if the robot says “Give me what’s in your cash register.”
The fictional theme of robots turning against humans is older than the word itself, which first appeared in the title of Karel Čapek’s 1920 play about artificial factory workers rising against their human overlords. Just 22 years later, Isaac Asimov invented the “Three Laws of Robotics” to serve as a hierarchical ethical code for the robots in his stories: first, never harm a human being through action or inaction; second, obey human orders; last, protect oneself. From the first story in which the laws appeared, Asimov explored their inherent contradictions. Great fiction, but unworkable theory.
Friendly AI is mentioned early on in the op-ed. The article makes the case why machine morality is important and why it is necessary to reconcile philosophical and engineering perspectives to make progress in this field.
17/11/2011 - More free Stanford Online classes beginning in Jan.
10/03/2011 - John Baez Interviews Eliezer Yudkowsky
From Azimuth, blog of mathematical physicist John Baez (author of the Crackpot Index):
This week I’ll start an interview with Eliezer Yudkowsky, who works at an institute he helped found: the Singularity Institute of Artificial Intelligence.
While many believe that global warming or peak oil are the biggest dangers facing humanity, Yudkowsky is more concerned about risks inherent in the accelerating development of technology. There are different scenarios one can imagine, but a bunch tend to get lumped under the general heading of a technological singularity. Instead of trying to explain this idea in all its variations, let me rapidly sketch its history and point you to some reading material. Then, on with the interview!
31/10/2010 - In Quest for ‘Legal High,’ Chemists Outfox Law
08/10/2010 - What does the internet know about you and who is it telling?
02/10/2010 - Optimizing information credibility in smart swarms
02/10/2010 - Survey of datamining paper released
04/08/2010 - Yet another evolving creature claims basic intelligence
30/05/2010 - Cuckoo Search Algorithm
26/04/2010 - An interesting swarm algorithm based on bats
12/03/2010 - French bread spiked with LSD in CIA experiment
30/12/2009 - Biomimetics to give robots cockroach like running ability
19/12/2009 - Prosthetic Fingers from Touch Bionics
The robotic digits feel natural and require no special surgery for attachment, which is a big benefit. They can be controlled either from a touchpad, or with myoelectric sensors that detect muscle signals from the remnants of the fingers, which activate the movements. Furthermore, the prosthetic hands can be customized to meet every individual’s specific needs. Doctors, for example, can tweak the device over Bluetooth to adjust the finer motor functions for every patient.
At a price range around $57,000 to $73,000, these robotic limbs are still quite expensive, but in some countries there are plans to make them available through health insurance. Whatever the cost, however, for many people they will surely be worth it. They equip patients with the ability to grasp on to and hold objects again, and do so securely, because they have the function to detect when the person has closed his fingers onto something.
In the video below, the patients selected to try out the ProDigits device accomplish tasks that many take for granted, such as folding clothes, drinking a cup of coffee and typing on a computer. In terms of design, they are not too abnormal, and can come in different skins, including one natural-looking “livingskin”. While the movements of the fingers do not seem perfectly flawless, they are a huge improvement on others of their kind. Most of all, they genuinely look like they can improve the lives of many people. Also, don't forget the also very cool and DARPA-sponsored Luke-Arm which is also undergoing clinical trials.
13/12/2009 - Google uses quantum computing algorithm for image recognition
23/11/2009 - Podcast with Michael Vassar
Just prior to Singularity Summit 2009, Singularity Institute President Michael Vassar did a podcast with “The Skeptics Guide to the Universe”, produced by the New England Skeptical Society in association with the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF).
Skip to 26:00 to get past the news items. Here’s a funny tidbit of Michael talking about some of the poor thinking seen when people discuss how to make AI friendly:
We have a lot of silliness, such as worst moral of the story ever… Lilo and Stitch. “If you’re just nice enough to the fundamentally evil creature, it will have to love you.”
That’s at 31:50. Also check out 41:00, where Michael explains the whole reason for having a Singularity Summit and Singularity Institute. At 49:30: “So how do we keep it from deciding that it wants to make ice cream out of human brains?”
16/11/2009 - Singularity 101 at Good.is
SIAI was invited to contribute a series of articles to Good.is, the website of GOOD magazine, which focuses on philanthropy and activism. The first article, “What is the Singularity?” is now live, and new articles will appear every Monday through January 26th. Myself and SIAI volunteer Roko Mijic will be alternating posts.
For an idea of how well-exposed GOOD is, see that their Twitter account has almost 170,000 followers.
05/11/2009 - Was Our Oldest Ancestor a Proton-Powered Rock?
For an interesting example of the power of lateral thinking solving scientific problems, check out the article “Was our oldest ancestor a proton-powered rock?” at New Scientist.
27/09/2009 - Virtual ant swarms to hunt down computer worms
27/06/2009 - Netflix prize claimed by international research team
In the span of 3 years, some 40,000 teams from around the world took up Netflix's challenge of improving movie recommendations by 10% over the company's Cinematch engine. And just a day ago, one of these teams has claimed the top prize and the $1,000,000 that go with it. This team consists of the 2007 and 2008 progress prize winning team BellKor from the USA, Austria's Big Chaos team, and Canada's Pragmatic Theory team. Until recently, the teams were competing against each other unable to reach the 10% improvement threshold but they put an end to the competition when they joined forces.
Other teams now have 30 days to submit their solutions and outdo the top team for a chance to claim the top prize for themselves; keep an eye on the official leaderboard here. Can others do it? Well, you never know so it will be an interesting 30 days.
I have to admit that a couple of years ago I really didn't think that this day would come. I was certain that the 10% improvement had been selected by Netflix to prevent people from ever claiming the million dollar prize. I guess, I was wrong after all.
That said, I am currently reading Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams' best seller Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything and I think the Netflix competition would make for a great story for this book. It is yet another example of how computers and the Internet allow thousands of people across the globe to collaborate effectively and efficiently to solve problems at a fraction of the cost of a single corporation doing the work in house. I don't know how much money in Research and Development Netflix will save from this competition but I suspect they stand to make a lot of money from the 10% improvement in recommendation accuracy. They will certainly make back the prize money in no time (if they haven't already considering that improvements over 7% have been achieved by many teams over the course of the last 2 years.)
Kudos to the teams for their achievement and kudos to Netflix for taking a chance most corporations would never dare take.
24/06/2009 - AI Report on Forbes.com
SIAI President Michael Vassar, SIAI Director of Research Ben Goertzel, and SIAI Advisor Nick Bostrom all have excellent short articles up on Forbes’ AI Report.
12/06/2009 - Interview with Michael Vassar at Future Blogger
Future Blogger has an interview up with SIAI President Michael Vassar.
This is the second interview that Michael has given since joining SIAI. The first, from April, is at Accelerating Future.
10/06/2009 - Sander Olson Interview with Ben Goertzel
Brian Wang has posted a recent interview with SIAI Director of Research Ben Goertzel at his site, Next Big Future.
25/05/2009 - The Singularity Institute in the New York Times
An article by John Markoff on the risks of Artificial Intelligence, inspired by the recent Terminator movie, appeared in the New York Times. The article mentions the Singularity Institute, and it cites, in addition to the well-known work of SIAI Director Ray Kurzweil, the Friendly AI research of SIAI Research Fellow Eliezer Yudkowsky.
17/05/2009 - SIAI Mention in PC World
The Singularity Institute recently got a nice mention on the PC World website, in an article titled, “Do Star Trek and the Rest Get Tech Right?”
17/05/2009 - Yudkowsky?s Writings on Rationality
From SIAI President Michael Vassar:
SIAI research fellow Eliezer Yudkowsky has just completed almost a year and a half of sequences explaining his conception of rationality on the websites
Overcoming Bias and Less Wrong. His final regular post is here.
He will now return to his regularly scheduled programming.
