Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence The Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) is a non-profit organization founded in 2000 to research safety issues related to the development of Strong AI. The organization advocates ideas initially put forth by I. J. History[edit] In 2000, Eliezer Yudkowsky[7] and Internet entrepreneurs Brian and Sabine Atkins founded the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence to "help humanity prepare for the moment when machine intelligence exceeded human intelligence".[8] At first, it operated primarily over the Internet, receiving financial contributions from transhumanists and futurists. In 2002, it published on its website the paper Levels of Organization in General Intelligence,[9] a preprint of a book chapter later included in a compilation of general AI theories, entitled "Artificial General Intelligence" (Ben Goertzel and Cassio Pennachin, eds.). The 2007 Singularity Summit took place on September 8-September 9, 2007, at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, San Francisco.
30 Challenges for 30 Days Did you know that it takes 30 days to form a new habit? The first few days are similar as to how you would imagine the birth of a new river. Full of enthusiasm it gushes forth, only to be met by strong obstacles. The path is not clear yet, and your surroundings don’t agree. So, take a moment to reflect on the question ‘Who do I want to be in 5 years?’ Check out this short TED talk first to get inspired: Now pick one or more challenges and stick with them! However, be cautioned, picking too many challenges at the same time can easily result in a failure of all of them. #1 Write a I-Like-This-About-You note/text/email each day for someone (Easy) This is the perfect way to let someone else know you care. #2 Talk to one stranger each day (Hard) This is a great one to cure approaching anxiety. #3 Take one picture each day (Hard) This one gets harder nearing the end of the challenge because at one point you will run out of the easy shots. #5 Take a 30 minute walk each day (Easy) We recommend:
Darpa sets out to make computers that teach themselves The Pentagon's blue-sky research agency is readying a nearly four-year project to boost artificial intelligence systems by building machines that can teach themselves -- while making it easier for ordinary schlubs like us to build them, too. When Darpa talks about artificial intelligence, it's not talking about modelling computers after the human brain. That path fell out of favour among computer scientists years ago as a means of creating artificial intelligence; we'd have to understand our own brains first before building a working artificial version of one. But the agency thinks we can build machines that learn and evolve, using algorithms -- "probabilistic programming" -- to parse through vast amounts of data and select the best of it. After that, the machine learns to repeat the process and do it better. But building such machines remains really, really hard: The agency calls it "Herculean". It's no surprise the mad scientists are interested. Image: Darpa
25 Beautifully Illustrated Thought-Provoking Questions A question that makes you think is worth asking… At the cusp of a new day, week, month, or year, most of us take a little time to reflect on our lives by looking back over the past and ahead into the future. We ponder the successes, failures and standout events that are slowly scripting our life’s story. This process of self reflection helps us maintain a conscious awareness of where we’ve been and where we intend to go. If you would like to maximize the benefits of self reflection, our new sister site, Thought Questions, is for you. Remember, these questions have no right or wrong answers. Here’s a sample of 25 recent thought questions posted on the site: Thought Questions is updated daily. Title photo by: Oberazzi For all other photo credits please refer to ThoughtQuestions.com Related 6 Questions that Will Save Your Relationships When you don't ask sincere questions and talk it out, there's a lot of important stuff that ends up never getting said. May 21, 2014 In "Life" July 24, 2008
Promises and Perils on the Road to Superintelligence Global Brain / Image credit: mindcontrol.se In the 21st century, we are walking an important road. Our species is alone on this road and it has one destination: super-intelligence. The most forward-thinking visionaries of our species were able to get a vague glimpse of this destination in the early 20th century. One conversation on the ever accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue. For thinkers like Chardin, this vision was spiritual and religious; God using evolution to pull our species closer to our destiny. Today the philosophical debates of this vision have become more varied, but also more focused on model building and scientific prediction. It’s hard to make real sense of what this means. In contrast, today we can define the specific mechanisms that could realize a new world. Promise #1: Omniscience
An Essay by Einstein -- The World As I See It - StumbleUpon "How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving... "I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. "My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities.
On the hunt for universal intelligence How do you use a scientific method to measure the intelligence of a human being, an animal, a machine or an extra-terrestrial? So far this has not been possible, but a team of Spanish and Australian researchers have taken a first step towards this by presenting the foundations to be used as a basis for this method in the journal Artificial Intelligence, and have also put forward a new intelligence test. "We have developed an 'anytime' intelligence test, in other words a test that can be interrupted at any time, but that gives a more accurate idea of the intelligence of the test subject if there is a longer time available in which to carry it out", José Hernández-Orallo, a researcher at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), tells SINC. This is just one of the many determining factors of the universal intelligence test. The researcher, along with his colleague David L. Use in artificial intelligence Explore further: Ant colonies help evacuees in disaster zones
Aldous Huxley English writer and philosopher (1894–1963) Aldous Leonard Huxley ( AWL-dəs; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher.[1][2][3][4] His bibliography spans nearly 50 books,[5][6] including novels and non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the prominent Huxley family, he graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with an undergraduate degree in English literature. Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine Oxford Poetry, before going on to publish travel writing, satire, and screenplays. Early life[edit] English Heritageblue plaque at 16 Bracknell Gardens, Hampstead, London, commemorating Aldous, his brother Julian, and his father Leonard Huxley's education began in his father's well-equipped botanical laboratory, after which he enrolled at Hillside School near Godalming.[20][21] He was taught there by his own mother for several years until she became terminally ill. Career[edit]
Nick Bostrom’s Superintelligence and the metaphorical AI time bomb Frank Knight was an idiosyncratic economist who formalized a distinction between risk and uncertainty in his 1921 book Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit. As Knight saw it, an ever-changing world brings new opportunities, but also means we have imperfect knowledge of future events. According to Knight, risk applies to situations where we do not know the outcome of a given situation, but can accurately measure the odds. “There is a fundamental distinction between the reward for taking a known risk and that for assuming a risk whose value itself is not known,” Knight wrote. Sometimes, due to uncertainty, we react too little or too late, but sometimes we overreact. Artificial Intelligence may be one of the areas where we overreact. Perhaps Elon was thinking of Blake’s The Book of Urizen when he described AI as ‘summoning the demon’: Lo, a shadow of horror is risen, In Eternity! Hawking and his co-authors were also keen to point out the “incalculable benefits.” of AI: The Bill Joy Effect
TWITTER BACKGROUNDS Can AI save us from AI? | Singularity HUB Can AI save us from AI? Nick Bostrom’s book Superintelligence might just be the most debated technology book of the year. Since its release, big names in tech and science, including Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, have warned of the dangers of artificial intelligence. Bostrom says that while we don’t know exactly when artificial intelligence will rival human intelligence, many experts believe there is a good chance it will happen at some point during the 21st century. He suggests that when AI reaches a human level of intelligence, it may very rapidly move past humans as it takes over its own development. The concept has long been discussed and is often described as an “intelligence explosion”—a term coined by computer scientist IJ Good fifty years ago. “Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man, however clever. Broader and seemingly beneficial goal setting might backfire too. So, what do you think?
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