Singularity Institute

The Singularity Institute (informally SingInst, formerly Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence or SIAI) is a non-profit organization founded in 2000 to develop safe artificial intelligence software, and to raise awareness of both the dangers and potential benefits it believes AI presents. The organization advocates ideas initially put forth by I. J. Good and Vernor Vinge regarding an "intelligence explosion", or Singularity, which is predicted to follow the creation of sufficiently advanced AI. In their view, the potential benefits and risks of this event necessitate the search for solutions to problems involving AI goal systems to ensure powerful AIs are not dangerous when they are created. The Singularity Institute espouses the Friendly AI model created by its co-founder Eliezer Yudkowsky as a potential solution to such problems.

Luke Muehlhauser is Executive Director. Inventor and futures studies author Ray Kurzweil served as one of its directors from 2007 to 2010. The institute maintains an advisory board whose members include Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom, biomedical gerontologist Aubrey de Grey, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, and Foresight Nanotech Institute co-founder Christine Peterson. It is tax exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code, and has a Canadian branch, SIAI-CA, formed in 2004 and recognized as a Charitable Organization by the Canada Revenue Agency.

Read more about Singularity Institute:  History

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