I do wonder about the counterfactual where MIRI never sold the Singularity Summit, and it was blowing up as an annual event, same way Less Wrong blew up as a place to discuss AI. Seems like owning the Summit could create a lot of leverage for advocacy.
One thing I find fascinating is the number of times MIRI has reinvented themselves as an organization over the decades. People often forget that they were originally founded to bring about the Singularity with no concern for friendliness. (I suspect their advocacy would be more credible if they emphasized that.)
Also a strategy postmortem on the decision to pivot to technical research in 2013: https://intelligence.org/2013/04/13/miris-strategy-for-2013/
I do wonder about the counterfactual where MIRI never sold the Singularity Summit, and it was blowing up as an annual event, same way Less Wrong blew up as a place to discuss AI. Seems like owning the Summit could create a lot of leverage for advocacy.
One thing I find fascinating is the number of times MIRI has reinvented themselves as an organization over the decades. People often forget that they were originally founded to bring about the Singularity with no concern for friendliness. (I suspect their advocacy would be more credible if they emphasized that.)