Hired by Halcyon Molecular Tuesday, Aug 31 2010
biology 6:08 pm
A minor personal announcement — I’ve been hired to work half-time for Halcyon Molecular in Redwood City. I’m mostly going to be working on improving their website content. Halcyon was founded by Michael and William Andregg, who I originally met in Tucson at a Center for Responsible Nanotechnology conference in 2007.
Halcyon is developing a technology to sequence genetic material at orders of magnitude faster than anything on the market or in the pipeline. Their technology and approach, which uses electron microscopy, is really unique. I’m happy I finally get to talk about the company and technology a bit in public because I’ve been excited about them in private for a long time.
You can read more about Halcyon at their website or at this TechCrunch article.
Also keep in mind that Halcyon is actively looking for new researchers.
If successful (if it isn’t already), how is this research going to change the world, when? Are there any potential risky/nefarious uses for it in the wrong hands?
The technology has the potential to make gene sequencing extremely fast and cheap. 50 scientists were asked “What would you do if it became possible to sequence the equivalent of a full human genome for only $1,000?” in Nature, their responses are interesting, and barely scrape the surface.
There are nefarious uses for practically everything in the wrong hands. This instrument would be more analogous to a microscope — it’s a tool that produces information from samples.
The amount of data that the $1000 genome can generate is astonishing.
The things we could learn from it…
And to think that the $1000 is close to becoming reality!
Congratulations Michael.
Have you started to follow John Bruce’s advice, Michael?
http://mthollywood.blogspot.com/2006/04/thought-experiment-as-ive-said-here.html
“As I’ve said here more than once, I think Michael Anissimov is quite an intelligent guy, and that intelligence is something other than just the mental malleability it takes to get a top-5 PhD. On the other hand, he’s very young, and frankly, my prediction is that he’s too smart to remain a transhumanist for long. (My advice, Michael, for what it’s worth, is finish a 4-year degree in some subject other than transhumanism while you have time, because this stuff is going to get old on you quickly, and you’ll need to do something with your life.)”
What does he mean by that?
No Mark. Media Director for the Singularity Institute is “doing something with my life”. The Singularity Institute is very important. Working at Halcyon is part of my expression of transhumanism.
You and John Bruce don’t really know me personally so it’s hard for you to make judgments about what I should do w/ my life. :\
“You’ll need to do something with your life. Such as writing flash fiction. Like me. Dartmouth sucks.”
“You and John Bruce don’t really know me personally so it’s hard for you to make judgments about what I should do w/ my life. :\”
Not to mention that Bruce’s prediction was wrong.
Congratulations Michael!
It seems like a great opportunity.
How much income will you be giving to SIAI?
I don’t know, how much do you think I should give? As an SIAI employee with a history of Singularity-productive work, shouldn’t I be asking for money from SIAI rather than the other way around?
(I just Paypalled $50 to SIAI.)
I wish I were smart enough to assist with AI research directly, but realistically, tossing a little bit of money their way is the only way I will be able to help, so I want to know as much about SIAI’s financial situation as possible. I only ask in the spirit of SIAI operating transparently.
The last time I asked you what Yudkowsky earned from speaking engagements and Goetzel earned from BioMind or other commercial ventures, you ignored me. It doesn’t seem right that a group that begs for public handouts should be so coy about what its employees earn from their side projects.
“how much do you think I should give?”
If http://singinst.org/grants/challenge/ is a cuurent page, pick one of the open research projects.
Do you know what Marcello’s current plans are, and roughly how much per year it would cost to hire him as a full-time FAI researcher? I want to earmark my next donation “Marcello Herreshoff Research Fund.”
Thanks for donating.
As far as I know, Yudkowsky only has a couple speaking engagements a year (or less for all I know), and is paid maybe a few thousand dollars for each. I forget the details, I’m just pulling this out of some vague memory of what someone at SIAI told me. Goertzel is no longer with SIAI so what he makes from his side projects is not our concern.
Marcello is attending Stanford. I’m not sure how much he would cost per year — you would have to ask him what salary he would accept.
Singularitarians at SIAI are somewhat predictable people when you get to know us — we do with our skills whatever we think is optimal to maximize the probability of a positive Singularity. Strategy discussions are frequent occurrences.
When did I “ignore” you? This blog should not be treated as email to me. Send me an email if you want a guaranteed response. Otherwise, I don’t always have time to read all the comments and respond to them.
“Goertzel is no longer with SIAI”
Have someone remove him from http://singinst.org/aboutus/advisors
Of all SIAI’s activities, I’m most interested in the nine people in the basement doing math. I will cheerfully contribute to Marcello/Eliezer/whoever’s living expenses if they’ll sit there doing math all day.
“As an SIAI employee with a history of Singularity-productive work, shouldn’t I be asking for money from SIAI?”
You’ve done all that work without AFAIK an independent source of income. Now I’m looking forward to seeing you do even more good work with all this extra money burning a hole in your pocket.
I was very happy to see your hiring announcement. For me, singularitarians earning money = WOOHOO! I hope you didn’t interpret my questions as antagonism.
genuinely a superb publish. I will undoubtedly be reading through this web site a lot more.
Hi Michael,
I am pretty much exited about the work which Halycon is doing and believe that this has the potential of making a big impact for the masses.
I have just completed my masters in computer science and want to be a part of the team… I have applied through the website but do not have reply … Is there an opening for a person who has done BSEE and MSCS and specialises in parallel programming / cuda technology ? I would really appreciate if you could help me out..
Thanks,
Archit
University of Southern California