Either people really don’t believe all this stuff about [...] the ability of the SIAI to create a seed AI
It’s worth noting that AGI is decades away; no one’s trying to take over the universe just yet. In this light, donations to SingInst now are better seen as funding preliminary research and outreach regarding this important problem, rather than funding AI construction.
not just believe Yudkowsky but ask for data and progress reports.
What sort of data and progress reports are you looking for? Glancing at the first two pages of the SingInst blog, I see a list of 2010 publications, and newsletters for last July and October. There’s certainly room for criticism (e.g., “Why no newsletter since last October?” or “All this outreach is not very useful; I want to see incremental progress towards FAI”), but I wouldn’t say there’ve been no progress reports.
What sort of data and progress reports are you looking for?
What are they working on right now?
Why are they working on it?
What constitutes a success of the current project?
How much money was spend on that project?
What could be done with more or less money?
As far as I know Yudkowsky is currently writing a book. He earnt $95,550 last year.
What I can’t reconcile right now is the strong commitment and what is actually being done. Quite a few people here actually seem to donate considerable amounts of their income to the SIAI. No doubt writing the sequences, a book and creating an online community is pretty cool but does not seem to be too cost intensive. At least others manage to do that without lots of people sending them money. I myself donated 3 times. But why are many people acting like the SIAI is the only charity that currently deserves funding, why is nobody asking if they actually need more money or if they are maybe sustainable right now? I haven’t heard anything about the acquisition of a supercomputer, field experiments in neuroscience or the hiring of mathematicians. All that would justify further donations. I feel people here are not critical and demanding enough.
It’s worth noting that AGI is decades away; no one’s trying to take over the universe just yet. In this light, donations to SingInst now are better seen as funding preliminary research and outreach regarding this important problem, rather than funding AI construction.
What sort of data and progress reports are you looking for? Glancing at the first two pages of the SingInst blog, I see a list of 2010 publications, and newsletters for last July and October. There’s certainly room for criticism (e.g., “Why no newsletter since last October?” or “All this outreach is not very useful; I want to see incremental progress towards FAI”), but I wouldn’t say there’ve been no progress reports.
What are they working on right now?
Why are they working on it?
What constitutes a success of the current project?
How much money was spend on that project?
What could be done with more or less money?
As far as I know Yudkowsky is currently writing a book. He earnt $95,550 last year.
What I can’t reconcile right now is the strong commitment and what is actually being done. Quite a few people here actually seem to donate considerable amounts of their income to the SIAI. No doubt writing the sequences, a book and creating an online community is pretty cool but does not seem to be too cost intensive. At least others manage to do that without lots of people sending them money. I myself donated 3 times. But why are many people acting like the SIAI is the only charity that currently deserves funding, why is nobody asking if they actually need more money or if they are maybe sustainable right now? I haven’t heard anything about the acquisition of a supercomputer, field experiments in neuroscience or the hiring of mathematicians. All that would justify further donations. I feel people here are not critical and demanding enough.