MIRI’s February 2014 Newsletter

See below for news on our new ebook, new research, new job openings, and Google’s new AI ethics board.

Research Updates

• New analyses: Robust Cooperation: A Case Study in Friendly AI Research and How Big is the Field of Artificial Intelligence?
• New interviews: Emil Vassev on formal verification, Mike Frank on reversible computing, Ronald de Wolf on quantum computing, Gerwin Klein on formal methods, André Platzer on verifying cyber-physical systems.
• Two MIRI talks from the AGI-11 academic conference have finally been posted (videos + slides + transcripts).

News Updates

• MIRI has a new Careers page, currently with 4 job openings.
• New ebook: Smarter Than Us: The Rise of Machine Intelligence.
• Want to help MIRI by investing in XRP?
• Two new posts in our 2013 in Review series, on outreach and on strategic and expository research.
• Two new conversations about MIRI strategy, with Holden Karnofsky and with Jacob Steinhardt.
• MIRI’s experience with Google Adwords.

Other Updates

• If you’re in the UK, go see Martin Rees, Jaan Tallinn, and Huw Price at the Cambridge lecture “Existential Risk: Surviving the 21st Century” on Feb. 26th.
• The big AI news last month was Google’s ~$400M acquisition of DeepMind, and Google’s rumored creation of an AI ethics board. The best coverage I saw was at Forbes: Inside Google’s Mysterious Ethics Board. One of DeepMind’s co-founders, Shane Legg, wrote his PhD thesis on machine superintelligence, takes AI risks quite seriously, and previously wrote about strategies for funding safe AGI. (Shane is far from the only safety-conscious person at DeepMind; he’s just the one who has written the most about AGI safety.)
• Blue Marble Space is running an essay contest on preparing for the distant future of civilization. $500 first-place prize.
• Nick Bostrom’s next book is Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, now available for pre-order from Amazon US and Amazon UK. I’ve read it three times already, and it is excellent. It’s easily the most cohesive, comprehensive coverage of the subject so far.

As always, please don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any questions or comments.