Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by exolymph 2154 days ago
Yudkowsky's outfit is the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, not the Singularity Institute. The latter might be Bostrom? Can't recall.
1 comments
pjscott 2154 days ago
MIRI was, until 2013, called the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Apparently the name change was part of a deal with Singularity University to avoid brand confusion. Announcement here:

https://intelligence.org/2013/01/30/we-are-now-the-machine-i...

link
notadonut 2154 days ago
Thank you.

Thiel was an early backer of SI and attendee of the Singularity Summits that ran from 2006-2012.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singularity_Summit

Soon after that, awareness of AI and superintelligence went mainstream, and we got FHI, FLI, etc.

I don't know if Thiel backs MIRI as he did SI. Arguably, he doesn't need to. He made his money on DeepMind and helped trigger a larger movement, and other institutions with a lot more resources, like Alphabet and MSFT, carry forward the torch.

link
celdon25 2153 days ago
Thiel wasn't an attendee, he was one of the people running the conference
link
notadonut 2153 days ago
He was attendee and sponsor and running the conference.
link