Information on the history of the MIRI from 2002 through 2006 is sparse, as gleaned from the Wikipedia page on the organization. As the SIAI in 2006, they successfully raised $200,000 as part of a donation campaign, with $100,000 matched as a donation by Peter Thiel. In the years since, the MIRI seems to have at least once annually held fundraisers that turn out just as successful. “The Sequences” were scarcely started in 2006, so I don’t know if Peter Thiel got wind of Eliezer’s ideas and organization on SL4, or Overcoming Bias, or what. Anyway, while Vinge, and earlier, I. J. Good, warned against the dangers of machine superintelligence, Eliezer founded a research organization aimed at solving this problem, formulated the mission for doing so, and popularized this through his meetings. I’m using metrics such as the raised profile of risks from machine intelligence, and the amount of vocal support and donations the MIRI receives as a proxy for how they and Eliezer specifically have raised the profile of this field of inquiry and concern. I assume others would not have done so much for the MIRI if they didn’t believe in its mission. Most of the recent coverage should probably be attributed to Nick Bostrom ans his recent book, though.
At the 2014 Effective Altruism Summit, Eliezer reported there are only four full-time FAI researchers in the world. That is himself, Nate Soares, and Benja Fallenstein of the MIRI, and Stuart Armstrong of the FHI. I was incredulous, and guessed Eliezer’s definition of ‘FAI researcher’ was more stringent than most sensible people would use. I asked Luke Muehlhauser for clarification. He remarked beyond those four Paul Christiano might count as ‘half a FAI researcher’ because he spends a portion of his time as a mathematician as UCB working on mathematics in line with the MIRI’s research agenda. The MIRI has since hired Patrick LaVictoire, and perhaps others.
The point is, the MIRI itself thinks there’s less than a dozen FAI researchers. For all we know, all FAI researchers might be users of LessWrong, and HPMoR fans. I could ask all of the known “FAI researchers” if they were first introduced to these research ideas, through LessWrong, through HPMoR. That indeed might be a “substantial portion”. You or I might qualify “FAI researcher” differently, but Eliezer by his own admission believes writing more HPMoR is one of the surprisingly best way to draw more attention from Math Olympiad contestants to their research, as does the MIRI.
Information on the history of the MIRI from 2002 through 2006 is sparse, as gleaned from the Wikipedia page on the organization. As the SIAI in 2006, they successfully raised $200,000 as part of a donation campaign, with $100,000 matched as a donation by Peter Thiel. In the years since, the MIRI seems to have at least once annually held fundraisers that turn out just as successful. “The Sequences” were scarcely started in 2006, so I don’t know if Peter Thiel got wind of Eliezer’s ideas and organization on SL4, or Overcoming Bias, or what. Anyway, while Vinge, and earlier, I. J. Good, warned against the dangers of machine superintelligence, Eliezer founded a research organization aimed at solving this problem, formulated the mission for doing so, and popularized this through his meetings. I’m using metrics such as the raised profile of risks from machine intelligence, and the amount of vocal support and donations the MIRI receives as a proxy for how they and Eliezer specifically have raised the profile of this field of inquiry and concern. I assume others would not have done so much for the MIRI if they didn’t believe in its mission. Most of the recent coverage should probably be attributed to Nick Bostrom ans his recent book, though.
At the 2014 Effective Altruism Summit, Eliezer reported there are only four full-time FAI researchers in the world. That is himself, Nate Soares, and Benja Fallenstein of the MIRI, and Stuart Armstrong of the FHI. I was incredulous, and guessed Eliezer’s definition of ‘FAI researcher’ was more stringent than most sensible people would use. I asked Luke Muehlhauser for clarification. He remarked beyond those four Paul Christiano might count as ‘half a FAI researcher’ because he spends a portion of his time as a mathematician as UCB working on mathematics in line with the MIRI’s research agenda. The MIRI has since hired Patrick LaVictoire, and perhaps others.
The point is, the MIRI itself thinks there’s less than a dozen FAI researchers. For all we know, all FAI researchers might be users of LessWrong, and HPMoR fans. I could ask all of the known “FAI researchers” if they were first introduced to these research ideas, through LessWrong, through HPMoR. That indeed might be a “substantial portion”. You or I might qualify “FAI researcher” differently, but Eliezer by his own admission believes writing more HPMoR is one of the surprisingly best way to draw more attention from Math Olympiad contestants to their research, as does the MIRI.