As I mentioned in my last post, the Singularity Institute (SIAI) has launched a 2010 Singularity Research Challenge to raise funds for Singularity research. Our organization is worth giving money to because the Singularity is a matter of life and death for our entire species, and we may only have a few decades remaining to deal with it. Our group is the most dedicated to maximizing the probability of a positive outcome, and has the intelligence and skill to produce detailed ideas and attract major media attention. We achieve a huge amount with our money. Nearly everyone at the Singularity Institute, including myself, takes a salary significantly lower than our market value given our education and experience, because we personally care about this issue a whole lot.

We have a network of several dozen young academics, mostly aged 20-30, who are devoted to performing research and writing papers on the topic of the Singularity if given the proper support and infrastructure. (For a snapshot of 2009′s Visiting Fellows, along with names and bios, see this page.) Most of these people have degrees or are working on degrees from schools like Stanford, Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, and Yale. For instance, SIAI volunteer Tom McCabe is at Yale and sometimes-SIAI Research Associate Marcello Herreshoff is at Stanford. Many of these youngsters are astonishing geniuses, performing extremely well at both formal and informal tests of intelligence, and it is clear that their life goal consists of having a positive impact on the Singularity.

What we lack is sufficient funding to sponsor all the research we want to sponsor. Visit the website of the Challenge and scroll down to the grant proposals to see some of our ideas for work in 2010. This list is part of an effort at SIAI being spearheaded by Research Fellow Anna Salamon to increase transparency and accountability as we expand. Anna is a competent, energetic manager who leads much of SIAI’s research wing, which is located in Santa Clara, CA. It was under her leadership that the SIAI Visiting Fellows Program was founded, and the grants proposal thing was her idea, which myself, SIAI Visiting Fellows, and volunteers duly fleshed out.

Other than room and board for researchers, SIAI doesn’t have much overhead. There are some administrators, such as President Michael Vassar and our Chief Compliance Officer Amy Willey, and one PR nerd, yours truly. Our goal is to convert dollars into existential risk mitigation more effectively than any other group. Of course, your evaluation of this will vary depending on how much of a risk you believe the Singularity could pose to humanity. Among those who believe that the Singularity could be a risk and it ought to be studied and dealt with, the Singularity Institute often gets high marks. When we receive constructive criticism from supporters, we keep it in mind in everything we do, and frequently question ourselves.

One unfortunate element that holds us back at this point is that the majority of our supporters are in their twenties or early thirties and therefore have limited personal wealth. However, some of SIAI’s dedicated supporters have already secured jobs in the tech sector with decent earning potential. As the Singularity Institute’s support base grows and matures, we will certainly possess greater resources, but we don’t want to wait. We want to fund as much Singularity research as we can, right now. Those considering donating larger amounts, say $1,000 or more, should feel free to get in touch with Anna Salamon (her email address is on the challenge page) and talk about what sort of research you would consider worthwhile to fund.

Discussion about the Singularity, and the Singularity Institute itself, are here to stay. We will still be around in 2020, 2030, 2040 — however long it takes to get to a positive Singularity. We are in it for the long haul. The question is, are you with us? If a robotic or AI advance you see in the news in the next decade impresses you with the speed of mankind’s progress towards real artificial intelligence, and has you concerned about the implications, you may regret not donating to our organization now, in 2009 or 2010. If time travel were possible, then the Singularity Institute is the kind of organization that people would be sent back in time to help. By sheer dumb luck, however, you happen to be one of the few people who has heard of the Singularity Institute this early in the game. Wouldn’t it be silly not to take advantage of that fact?