A Short Story Ending in a Request

So, I was surfing Facebook earlier, looking at pics posted by other people of TAM 9, when I came across this picture from NECSS 2011 in the sidebar. (I assume it’s a public domain picture, since it was on Facebook, but if anyone knows otherwise please let me know.)

In this picture: Julia Galef, of the Rationally Speaking Podcast and Measure of Doubt Blog. Eliezer Yudkowsky of the Singularity Institute and LessWrong blog, author of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

This was fun for me because I met Julia Galef at TAM and she is the only other person I ‘know’ who has read Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. We geeked out about MoR a bit, and she was also the person who first introduced me to it on a shout-out on one of the episodes of Rationally Speaking. Yudkowsky is a hero of mine, and would be even if he didn’t write my favorite book. Anyway, this picture was a lot of fun for me and reminded me to check and see if the new chapter of MoR had been released.

It has been about two months since the last release, but I check every few days. I checked today, and BEHOLD! the new chapter has been released. But that’s not all. Before the chapter began, there was a note from Yudkowsky:

“Sorry about the delay! I wanted to finish the remaining chapters in “Self-Actualization” before I resumed posting so that I could close out the arc at a regular pace. If you need to reread the last chapter or two before reading this one, you should not have to reread them again in another month. There are at least 4 chapters plus an Interlude ready, and with any luck I’ll have Ch. 78 finished by the time the Interlude runs.

The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, the nonprofit I work at, is currently running a Summer Challenge to tide us over until the Singularity Summit in October (Oct 15-16 in New York, ticket prices go up by $100 after September starts). The Summer Challenge grant will double up to $125,000 in donations, ends at the end of August, and is currently up to only $39,000 which is somewhat worrying. I hadn’t meant to do anything like this, but:

I will release completed chapters at a pace of one every 6 days, or one every 5 days after the SIAI’s Summer Challenge reaches $50,000, or one every 4 days after the Summer Challenge reaches $75,000, or one every 3 days if the Summer Challenge is completed. Remember, the Summer Challenge has until the end of August, after that the pace will be set. (Just some slight encouragement for donors reading this fic to get around to donating sooner rather than later.) A link to the Challenge and the Summit can be found in the profile page, or Google “summer singularity challenge” and “Singularity Summit” respectively.

Update 8/25: Now at $60,000.

Therefore this fic will next update at 7pm Pacific Time, on Mon Aug 29th, unless the Summer Challenge reaches $75,000 or more before then, in which case the fic will update sooner (but still at 7pm, because I’m not cruel).”

I have been meaning to give the Singularity Institute money for a couple of months now (I’ve only recently learned about this project and what they do). This was the nudge I needed to get off my ass and give a bit. I’m but a lowly college student, so I couldn’t donate tens of thousands, but I gave a few pennies and hopefully that will help their project at least a little.

To be clear, I didn’t give to the Singularity Institute because I wanted more frequent releases of chapters. I gave because I truly believe that their cause is quite possibly the most important goal our species should be focusing on right now. At the very least, it is not receiving nearly as much attention it should be. What finally nailed the importance home for me was this essay (warning: not a happy article and not something that you will enjoy reading).

The point of this post is not only to alert you that the new chapter of MoR is out (Yay!), but to make a request. If you’re inclined, read up a bit on what the Singularity Institute does and, if you decide it’s a worthy cause, please donate some money to help fund the project. I do not think it is an exaggeration so say that Friendly Artificial Intelligence and successfully meeting the technological singularity will be looked upon by history as the the most critical events in the history of humanity.