February 2016 Newsletter

Research updates

• New at IAFF: Thoughts on Logical Dutch Book Arguments; Another View of Quantilizers: Avoiding Goodhart’s Law; Another Concise Open Problem

General updates

• Fundraiser and grant successes: MIRI will be working with AI pioneer Stuart Russell and a to-be-determined postdoctoral researcher on the problem of corrigibility, thanks to a $75,000 grant by the Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity.

News and links

• In a major break from trend in Go progress, DeepMind’s AlphaGo software defeats the European Go champion 5-0. A top Go player analyzes AlphaGo’s play.
• NYU hosted a Future of AI symposium this month, with a number of leading thinkers in AI and existential risk reduction in attendance.
• Marvin Minsky, one of the early architects of the field of AI, has passed away.
• Learning and Logic: Paul Christiano writes on the challenge of “pursuing symbolically defined goals” without known observational proxies.
• OpenAI, a new Elon-Musk-backed AI research nonprofit, answers questions on Reddit. (MIRI senior researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky also chimes in.)
• Victoria Krakovna argues that people concerned about AI safety should consider becoming AI researchers.
• The Centre for Effective Altruism is accepting applicants through Feb. 14 to the Pareto Fellowship, a new three-month training program for ambitious altruists.