Difference between revisions of "Timeline of Machine Intelligence Research Institute"

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This is a '''timeline of Machine Intelligence Research Institute'''. {{w|Machine Intelligence Research Institute}} (MIRI) is a nonprofit organization that does work related to AI safety.
 
This is a '''timeline of Machine Intelligence Research Institute'''. {{w|Machine Intelligence Research Institute}} (MIRI) is a nonprofit organization that does work related to AI safety.

Revision as of 15:12, 4 October 2024

The timeline currently offers focused coverage of the period until June 2024. It is likely to miss important developments outside this period (particularly after this period) though it may have a few events from after this period.

This is a timeline of Machine Intelligence Research Institute. Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) is a nonprofit organization that does work related to AI safety.

Sample questions

This is an experimental section that provides some sample questions for readers, similar to reading questions that might come with a book. Some readers of this timeline might come to the page aimlessly and might not have a good idea of what they want to get out of the page. Having some "interesting" questions can help in reading the page with more purpose and in getting a sense of why the timeline is an important tool to have.

The following are some interesting questions that can be answered by reading this timeline:

  • Which Singularity Summits did MIRI host, and when did they happen? (Sort by the "Event type" column and look at the rows labeled "Conference".)
  • What was MIRI up to for the first ten years of its existence (before Luke Muehlhauser joined, before Holden Karnofsky wrote his critique of the organization)? (Scan the years 2000–2009.)
  • How has MIRI's explicit mission changed over the years? (Sort by the "Event type" column and look at the rows labeled "Mission".)

The following are some interesting questions that are difficult or impossible to answer just by reading the current version of this timeline, but might be possible to answer using a future version of this timeline:

  • When did some big donations to MIRI take place (for instance, the one by Peter Thiel)?
  • Has MIRI "done more things" between 2010–2013 or between 2014–2017? (More information)

Big picture

Time period Development summary More details
1998–2002 Various publications related to creating a superhuman AI Eliezer Yudkowsky writes various documents about designing a superhuman AI during this period, including "Coding a Transhuman AI", "The Plan to Singularity", and "Creating Friendly AI". The Flare Programming Language project launches to aid the creation of a superhuman AI.
2004–2009 Tyler Emerson's tenure as executive director Under Emerson's leadership, MIRI starts the Singularity Summit, moves to the San Francisco Bay Area, and lands Peter Thiel as a donor and enthusiastic endorser.
2006–2009 Modern rationalist community forms Overcoming Bias is created, LessWrong is created, Eliezer Yudkowsky writes the Sequences, and so on.
2006–2012 The Singularity Summits take place annually After the summit in 2012, the organization renames itself from "Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence" to the current "Machine Intelligence Research Institute" and sells the Singularity Summit to Singularity University.
2009–2012 Michael Vassar's tenure as president
2011–2015 Luke Muehlhauser's tenure as executive director Muehlhauser would be credited with significantly turning MIRI around, improving professionalism and reputation with donors. The name change, shift in focus to research, and improvement of relations with the nascent effective altruism community and the AI research community occur under his watch.[1][2][3]
2013–present Change of focus MIRI changes focus to put less effort into public outreach and shift its research to Friendly AI math research.
2015–present Nate Soares's tenure as executive director Soares continues to move MIRI forward in the direction that it shifted to under Muehlhauser, with a focus on AI safety research, and increased coordination with the AI safety and AI risk communities.

Full timeline

Year Month and date Event type Details
1979 September 11 Eliezer Yudkowsky is born.[4]
1996 November 18 Eliezer Yudkowsky writes the first version of "Staring into the Singularity".[5]
1998 Publication The initial version of "Coding a Transhuman AI" (CaTAI) is published.[6]
1999 March 11 The Singularitarian mailing list is launched. The mailing list page notes that although hosted on MIRI's website, the mailing list "should be considered as being controlled by the individual Eliezer Yudkowsky".[7]
1999 September 17 The Singularitarian mailing list is first informed (by Yudkowsky?) of "The Plan to Singularity" (called "Creating the Singularity" at the time).[8]
2000–2003 Eliezer Yudkowsky's "coming of age" (including his "naturalistic awakening", in which he realizes that a superintelligence would not necessarily follow human morality) takes place during this period.[9][10][11]
2000 January 1 Publication "The Plan to Singularity" version 1.0 is written and published by Eliezer Yudkowsky, and posted to the Singularitarian, Extropians, and transhuman mailing lists.[8]
2000 January 1 Publication "The Singularitarian Principles" version 1.0 by Eliezer Yudkowsky is published.[12]
2000 February 6 The first email is sent on SL4 ("Shock Level Four"), a mailing list about transhumanism, superintelligent AI, existential risks, and so on.[13][14]
2000 May 18 Publication "Coding a Transhuman AI" (CaTAI) version 2.0a is "rushed out in time for the Foresight Gathering".[15]
2000 July 27 Mission Machine Intelligence Research Institute is founded as the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence by Brian Atkins, Sabine Atkins (then Sabine Stoeckel) and Eliezer Yudkowsky. The organization's mission ("organization's primary exempt purpose" on Form 990) at the time is "Create a Friendly, self-improving Artificial Intelligence"; this mission would be in use during 2000–2006 and would change in 2007.[16]:3[17]
2000 September 1 Publication Large parts of "The Plan to Singularity" are marked obsolete "due to formation of Singularity Institute, and due to fundamental shifts in AI strategy caused by publication of CaTAI [Coding a Transhuman AI] 2".[8]
2000 September 7 Publication "Coding a Transhuman AI" (CaTAI) version 2.2.0 is published.[15]
2000 September 14 The first Wayback Machine snapshot of MIRI's website is from this day, using the singinst.org domain name.[18]
2001 April 8 MIRI begins accepting donations after receiving tax-exempt status.[19]
2001 April 18 Publication Version 0.9 of "Creating Friendly AI" is released.[20]
2001 June 14 Publication The "SIAI Guidelines on Friendly AI" are published.[21]
2001 June 15 Publication Version 1.0 of "Creating Friendly AI" is published.[22][20]
2001 July 23 Project MIRI announces that it has formally launched the development of the Flare programming language under Dmitriy Myshkin.[23]
2001 December 21 Domain MIRI obtains the flare.org domain name for its Flare language project.[23]
2002 March 8 AI box The first AI box experiment by Eliezer Yudkowsky, against Nathan Russell as gatekeeper, takes place. The AI is released.[24]
2002 April 7 Publication A draft of "Levels of Organization in General Intelligence" is announced on SL4.[25][26]
2002 July 4–5 AI box The second AI box experiment by Eliezer Yudkowsky, against David McFadzean as gatekeeper, takes place. The AI is released.[27]
2002 September 6 Staff Christian Rovner is appointed as MIRI's volunteer coordinator.[23]
2002 October 1 MIRI "releases a major new site upgrade" with various new pages.[23]
2002 October 7 Project MIRI announces the creation of its volunteers mailing list.[23]
2003 Project The Flare Programming language project is officially canceled.[28]
2003 Publication Eliezer Yudkowsky's "An Intuitive Explanation of Bayesian Reasoning" is published.[29]
2003 April 30 Eliezer Yudkowsky posts an update about MIRI to the SL4 mailing list. The update discusses the need for an executive director and "extremely bright programmers", and discusses Yudkowsky's hopes to write "a book on the underlying theory and specific human practice of rationality" (which presumably became the Sequences) in order to attract the attention of these programmers.[30]
2004 March 4–11 Staff MIRI announces Tyler Emerson as executive director.[31][32]
2004 April 7 Staff Michael Anissimov is announced as MIRI's advocacy director.[33]
2004 April 14 Outside review The first version of the Wikipedia page for MIRI is created.[34]
2004 May Publication Eliezer Yudkowsky's paper "Coherent Extrapolated Volition" is published around this time.[35] It is originally called "Collective Volition", and is announced on the MIRI website on August 16.[36][31]
2004 August 5–8 Conference TransVision 2004 takes place. TransVision is the World Transhumanist Association's annual event. MIRI is a sponsor for the event.[31]
2005 January 4 Publication "A Technical Explanation of Technical Explanation" is published.[37] It is announced on the MIRI news page on this day.[31]
2005 Conference MIRI does "AI and existential risk presentations at Stanford, Immortality Institute's Life Extension Conference, and the Terasem Foundation".[38]
2005 Publication Eliezer Yudkowsky writes chapters for Global Catastrophic Risks, edited by Nick Bostrom and Milan M. Ćirković.[38] The book would be published in 2008.
2005 February 2 MIRI relocates from the Atlanta metropolitan area of Georgia to the Bay Area of California.[31]
2005 July 22–24 Conference TransVision 2005 takes place in Caracas, Venezuela. MIRI is a sponsor for the event.[31]
2005 August 21 AI box The third AI box experiment by Eliezer Yudkowsky, against Carl Shulman as gatekeeper, takes place. The AI is released.[39]
2005–2006 December 20, 2005 – February 19, 2006 Financial The 2006 $100,000 Singularity Challenge, a fundraiser in which Peter Thiel matches donations up to $100,000, takes place. The fundraiser successfully matches the $100,000 amount.[31][40] This would mark the beginning of Peter Thiel (and later, the Thiel Foundation) playing an important role in funding MIRI, which it would continue to do till 2015.[41]
2006 Publication "Twelve Virtues of Rationality" is published.[42]
2006 February 13 Peter Thiel joins MIRI's Board of Advisors.[31]
2006 May 13 Conference The first Singularity Summit takes place at Stanford University.[43][44][45]
2006 November Robin Hanson starts Overcoming Bias.[46]
2007 Mission MIRI's organization mission ("Organization's Primary Exempt Purpose" on Form 990) changes to: "To develop safe, stable and self-modifying Artificial General Intelligence. And to support novel research and to foster the creation of a research community focused on Artificial General Intelligence and Safe and Friendly Artificial Intelligence."[47] This mission would be used in 2008 and 2009 as well.
2007 Project MIRI's outreach blog is started.[38]
2007 Project MIRI's Interview Series is started.[38]
2007 Staff Ben Goertzel becomes director of research at MIRI.[48] He would go on to lead work on OpenCog which would officially start in 2008.
2007 May 16 Project MIRI's introductory video is published on YouTube.[49][38]
2007 July 10 Publication The oldest (surviving) post on the MIRI blog is from this day. The post is "The Power of Intelligence" by Eliezer Yudkowsky.[50]
2007 September 8–9 Conference The Singularity Summit 2007 takes place in the San Francisco Bay Area.[43][51][52]
2008 Publication "The Simple Truth" is published.[53]
2008 Project MIRI expands its Interview Series.[38]
2008 Project MIRI begins its summer intern program.[38]
2008 Project OpenCog is founded "via a grant from the [MIRI], and the donation from Novamente LLC of a large body of software code and software designs developed during the period 2001–2007".[54] Ben Goertzel directs MIRI work on OpenCog; his work at MIRI is limited to work on OpenCog-related projects. Through funding from the Google Summer of Code, 11 interns get to work on the project in the summer of 2008.[48] After the departure of Tyler Emerson and MIRI's deemphasis of OpenCog, Goertzel would step down as research director in 2010.[55] See also OpenCog § Relation to Singularity Institute.
2008 October 25 Conference The Singularity Summit 2008 takes place in San Jose.[56][57]
2008 November–December Outside review The AI-Foom debate between Robin Hanson and Eliezer Yudkowsky takes place. The blog posts from the debate would later be turned into an ebook by MIRI.[58][59]
2009 Project MIRI establishes the Visiting Fellows Program.[38]
2009 (early) Staff Executive director Tyler Emerson departs MIRI.[60]
2009 (early) Staff Michael Anissimov is hired as a media director.[60] (Since he was advocacy director as far back as 2004, it's not clear if he left the organization and came back, or if just changed positions.)
2009 February Project Eliezer Yudkowsky starts LessWrong using as seed material his posts on Overcoming Bias.[61] On the 2009 accomplishments page, MIRI describes LessWrong as being "important to the Singularity Institute's work towards a beneficial Singularity in providing an introduction to issues of cognitive biases and rationality relevant for careful thinking about optimal philanthropy and many of the problems that must be solved in advance of the creation of provably human-friendly powerful artificial intelligence". And: "Besides providing a home for an intellectual community dialoguing on rationality and decision theory, Less Wrong is also a key venue for SIAI recruitment. Many of the participants in SIAI's Visiting Fellows Program first discovered the organization through Less Wrong."[60]
2009 February 16 Staff Michael Vassar announces himself as president of MIRI.[62]
2009 April Publication Eliezer Yudkowsky completes the Sequences.[60]
2009 August 13 Social media The Singularity Institute Twitter account, singinst, is created.[63]
2009 September Staff Amy Willey Labenz begins an internship at MIRI. During the internship in November, she would uncover the embezzlement.[64]
2009 October Project A website maintained by MIRI, The Uncertain Future, first appears around this time.[65][66] The goal of the website is to "allow those interested in future technology to form their own rigorous, mathematically consistent model of how the development of advanced technologies will affect the evolution of civilization over the next hundred years".[67] Work on the project started in 2008.[68]
2009 October 3–4 Conference The Singularity Summit 2009 takes place in New York.[69][70]
2009 November Financial Embezzlement: "Misappropriation of assets, by a contractor, was discovered in November 2009."[71]
2009 December Staff Amy Willey Labenz, previously an intern, joins MIRI as Chief Compliance Officer, partly due to her uncovering of the embezzlement in November.[60][64]
2009 December 11 Influence The third edition of Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach by Stuart J. Russell and Peter Norvig is published. In this edition, for the first time, Friendly AI is mentioned and Eliezer Yudkowsky is cited.
2009 December 12 Project The Uncertain Future reaches beta and is announced on the MIRI blog.[72]
2009 Financial MIRI reports $118,803.00 in theft during this year.[38][73][74][75] The theft was by two former employees.[76]
2010 Mission The organization mission changes to: "To develop the theory and particulars of safe self-improving Artificial Intelligence; to support novel research and foster the creation of a research community focused on safe Artificial General Intelligence; and to otherwise improve the probability of humanity surviving future technological advances."[77] This mission would be used in 2011 and 2012 as well.
2010 February 28 Publication The first chapter of Eliezer Yudkowsky's fan fiction Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is published. The book would be published as a serial concluding on March 14, 2015.[78][79] The fan fiction would become the initial contact with MIRI of several larger donors to MIRI.[80]
2010 April Staff Amy Willey Labenz is promoted to Chief Operating Officer; she was previously the Chief Compliance Officer. From 2010 to 2012 she would also serve as the Executive Producer of the Singularity Summits.[64]
2010 June 17 Popular culture Zendegi, a science fiction book by Greg Egan, is published. The book includes a character called Nate Caplan (partly inspired by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Robin Hanson), a website called Overpowering Falsehood dot com (partly inspired by Overcoming Bias and LessWrong), and a Benign Superintelligence Bootstrap Project, inspired by the Singularity Institute's friendly AI project.[81][82][83]
2010 August 14–15 Conference The Singularity Summit 2010 takes place in San Francisco.[84]
2010 December 21 Social media The first post on the MIRI Facebook page is from this day.[85][86]
2010–2011 December 21, 2010 – January 20, 2011 Financial The Tallinn–Evans $125,000 Singularity Challenge takes place. The Challenge is a fundraiser in which Edwin Evans and Jaan Tallinn match each dollar donated to MIRI up to $125,000.[87][88]
2011 February 4 Project The Uncertain Future is open-sourced.[68]
2011 February Outside review Holden Karnofsky of GiveWell has a conversation with MIRI staff. The conversation reveals the existence of a "Persistent Problems Group" at MIRI, which will supposedly "assemble a blue-ribbon panel of recognizable experts to make sense of the academic literature on very applicable, popular, but poorly understood topics such as diet/nutrition".[89] On April 30, Karnofsky would post the conversation to the GiveWell mailing list.[90]
2011 April Staff Luke Muehlhauser begins as an intern at MIRI.[91]
2011 May 10 – June 24 Outside review Holden Karnofsky of GiveWell and Jaan Tallinn (with Dario Amodei being present in the initial phone conversation) correspond regarding MIRI's work. The correspondence is posted to the GiveWell mailing list on July 18.[92]
2011 June 24 Domain A Wayback Machine snapshot on this day shows that singularity.org has turned into a GoDaddy.com placeholder.[93] Before this, the domain is some blog, most likely unrelated to MIRI.[94]
2011 July 18 – October 20 Domain At least during this period, the singularity.org domain name redirects to singinst.org/singularityfaq.[94]
2011 September 6 Domain The first Wayback Machine capture of singularityvolunteers.org is from this day.[95] For a time the site is used to coordinate volunteer efforts.
2011 October 15–16 Conference The Singularity Summit 2011 takes place in New York.[96]
2011 October 17 Social media The Singularity Summit YouTube account, SingularitySummits, is created.[97]
2011 November Staff Luke Muehlhauser is appointed executive director of MIRI.[98]
2011 December 12 Project Luke Muehlhauser announces the creation of Friendly-AI.com, a website introducing the idea of Friendly AI.[99]
2012 Staff Michael Vassar leaves MIRI to found MetaMed, a personalized medical advising company.[100]
2011  – 2012 December 10 and January 12 Opinion A two-part Q&A with MIRI's newly appointed Executive Director Luke Muehlhauser is published.[101][102]
2012 February 4 – May 4 Domain At least during this period, singularity.org redirects to singinst.org.[103]
2012 May 8 MIRI's April 2012 progress report is published, in which the Center for Applied Rationality's name is announced. Until this point, CFAR was known as the "Rationality Group" or "Rationality Org".[104]
2012 May 11 Outside review Holden Karnofsky publishes "Thoughts on the Singularity Institute (SI)" on LessWrong. The post explains why GiveWell does not plan to recommend the Singularity Institute.[105]
2012 June 16–28 Domain Sometime during this period, singinst.org begins redirecting to singularity.org, both being controlled by MIRI.[106] The new website at singularity.org would be announced in the July 2012 newsletter.[107]
2012 July, August 6 Starting with July 2012, MIRI would start publishing monthly newsletters as blog posts. The July 2012 newsletter is posted on August 6.[107][108]
2012 August 15 Luke Muehlhauser does an "ask me anything" (AMA) on reddit's r/Futurology.[109]
2012 September (approximate) Project MIRI begins to partner with Youtopia as its volunteer management platform.[110]
2012 October 13–14 Conference The Singularity Summit 2012 takes place.[111][112]
2012 November 11–18 Workshop The 1st Workshop on Logic, Probability, and Reflection takes place.[113]
2012 December 6 Singularity University announces that it has acquired the Singularity Summit from MIRI.[114] Joshua Fox praises the move, noting: "The Singularity Summit was always off-topic for SI: more SU-like than SI-like."[115] However, Singularity University would not continue the original tradition of the Summit,[116] and the later EA Global conference (organized in some years by Amy Willey Labenz who used to work at MIRI) would inherit some of the characteristics of the Singularity Summit.[117] Around this time, Amy Willey Labenz also leaves MIRI.[64]
2013 Mission The organization mission changes to: "To ensure that the creation of smarter-than-human intelligence has a positive impact. Thus, the charitable purpose of the organization is to: a) perform research relevant to ensuring that smarter-than-human intelligence has a positive impact; b) raise awareness of this important issue; c) advise researchers, leasers and laypeople around the world; d) as necessary, implement a smarter-than-human intelligence with humane, stable goals."[118] This mission would stay the same for 2014 and 2015.
2013–2014 Project MIRI conducts a lot of conversations during this period. Out of 80 conversations listed as of July 14, 2017, 75 are from this period (19 in 2013 and 56 in 2014).[119] In the "2014 in review" post on MIRI's blog Luke Muehlhauser writes: "Nearly all of the interviews were begun in 2013 or early 2014, even if they were not finished and published until much later. Mid-way through 2014, we decided to de-prioritize expert interviews, due to apparent diminishing returns."[120]
2013 January Staff Michael Anissimov leaves MIRI.[121]
2013 January 30 MIRI announces that it has renamed itself from "Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence" to "Machine Intelligence Research Institute".[122]
2013 February 1 Publication Facing the Intelligence Explosion by Luke Muehlhauser is published by MIRI.[123]
2013 February 11 – February 28 Domain Sometime during this period, MIRI's new website at intelligence.org begins to function.[124][125] The new website is announced by Executive Director Luke Muehlhauser in a blog post on February 28.[126]
2013 March 2 – July 4 Domain At least during this period, singularity.org redirects to intelligence.org, MIRI's new domain.[127]
2013 April 3 Publication Singularity Hypotheses: A Scientific and Philosophical Assessment is published by Springer. The book contains chapters written by MIRI researchers and research associates.[128][129]
2013 April 3–24 Workshop The 2nd Workshop on Logic, Probability, and Reflection takes place.[113]
2013 April 13 Strategy MIRI publishes an update on its strategy on its blog. In the blog post, MIRI executive director Luke Muehlhauser states that MIRI plans to put less effort into public outreach and shift its research to Friendly AI math research.[130]
2013 April 18 Staff MIRI announces that executive assistant Ioven Fables is leaving MIRI due to changes in MIRI's operational needs (from its transition to a research-oriented organization).[131]
2013 July 4 Social media MIRI's Twitter account, MIRIBerkeley, is created.[132]
2013 July 4 Social media The earliest post on MIRI's Google Plus account, IntelligenceOrg, is from this day.[133][134]
2013 July 8–14 Workshop The 3rd Workshop on Logic, Probability, and Reflection takes place.[113]
2013 August 4 Domain By this point, singularity.org is operated by Singularity University.[135]
2013 September 1 Publication The Hanson-Yudkowsky AI-Foom Debate is published as an ebook by MIRI.[136]
2013 September 7–13 Workshop The 4th Workshop on Logic, Probability, and Reflection takes place.[113]
2013 October 25 Social media The MIRI YouTube account, MIRIBerkeley, is created.[137]
2013 October 27 Outside review MIRI meets with Holden Karnofsky, Jacob Steinhardt, and Dario Amodei for a discussion about MIRI's organizational strategy.[138][139]
2013 November 23–29 Workshop The 5th Workshop on Logic, Probability, and Reflection takes place.[113]
2013 December 10 Domain The first working Wayback Machine snapshot of the MIRI Volunteers website, available at mirivolunteers.org, is from this day.[140]
2013 December 14–20 Workshop The 6th Workshop on Logic, Probability, and Reflection takes place.[113] This is the first workshop attended by Nate Soares (at Google at the time), who would later becomes executive director of MIRI.[1][141]
2014 January (approximate) Financial Jed McCaleb, the creator of Ripple and original founder of Mt. Gox, makes a donation worth $500,000 in XRP.[142]
2014 January 16 Outside review MIRI meets with Holden Karnofsky of GiveWell for a discussion on existential risk strategy.[143][139]
2014 February 1 Publication Smarter Than Us: The Rise of Machine Intelligence by Stuart Armstrong is published by MIRI.[144]
2014 March–May Influence Future of Life Institute (FLI) is founded.[145] MIRI is a parter organization to FLI.[146] The Singularity Summit, MIRI's annual conference from 2006–2012, also played "a key causal role in getting Max Tegmark interested and the FLI created".[147] "Tallinn, a co-founder of FLI and of the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER), cites MIRI as a key source for his views on AI risk".[148]
2014 March 12–13 Staff Some recent hires at MIRI are announced. Among the new team members is Nate Soares, who would become MIRI's executive director in 2015.[141] MIRI also hosts an Expansion Party to announce these hires to local supporters.[149][150][151][152]
2014 May 3–11 Workshop The 7th Workshop on Logic, Probability, and Reflection takes place.[113]
2014 July–September Influence Nick Bostrom's book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies is published. While Bostrom has never worked for MIRI, he is a research advisor to MIRI. MIRI also contributed substantially to the publication of the book.[147]
2014 July 4 Project Earliest evidence of AI Impacts existing is from this day.[153]
2014 August Project The AI Impacts website launches.[154]
2014 November 4 Project The Intelligent Agent Foundations Forum, run by MIRI, is launched.[155]
2015 January Project AI Impacts rolls out a new website.[156]
2015 January 2–5 Conference The Future of AI: Opportunities and Challenges, an AI safety conference, takes place in Puerto Rico. The conference is organized by the Future of Life Institute, but several MIRI staff (including Luke Muehlhauser, Eliezer Yudkowsky, and Nate Soares) attend.[157] Nate Soares would later call this the "turning point" of when top academics begin to focus on AI risk.[158]
2015 March 11 Influence Rationality: From AI to Zombies is published. It is an ebook of Eliezer Yudkowsky's series of blog posts, called "the Sequences".[159][160][161]
2015 May 4–6 Workshop The 1st Introductory Workshop on Logical Decision Theory takes place.[113]
2015 May 6 Staff Executive director Luke Muehlhauser announces his departure from MIRI, for a position as a Research Analyst at Open Philanthropy. The announcement also states that Nate Soares will be the new executive director.[162]
2015 May 13–19 Conference Along with the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, MIRI organizes the Self-prediction in Decision Theory and Artificial Intelligence Conference. Several MIRI researchers present at the conference.[163]
2015 May 29–31 Workshop The 1st Introductory Workshop on Logical Uncertainty takes place.[113]
2015 June 3–4 Staff Nate Soares begins as executive director of MIRI.[1]
2015 June 11 Nate Soares, executive director of MIRI, does an "ask me anything" (AMA) on the Effective Altruism Forum.[164]
2015 June 12–14 Workshop The 2nd Introductory Workshop on Logical Decision Theory takes place.[113]
2015 June 26–28 Workshop The 1st Introductory Workshop on Vingean Reflection takes place.[113]
2015 July 7–26 Project The MIRI Summer Fellows program 2015, run by the Center for Applied Rationality, takes place.[165] This program is apparently "relatively successful at recruiting staff for MIRI".[166]
2015 August 7–9 Workshop The 2nd Introductory Workshop on Logical Uncertainty takes place.[113]
2015 August 28–30 Workshop The 3rd Introductory Workshop on Logical Decision Theory takes place.[113]
2015 September 26 Outside review The Effective Altruism Wiki page on MIRI is created.[167]
2016 Publication MIRI pays Eliezer Yudkowsky to produce AI alignment content for Arbital.[168][169] (Not sure if there are any more details of this available.)
2016 March 30 Staff MIRI announces two internal staff promotions: Malo Bourgon, formerly a program management analyst, becomes Chief Operating Officer (COO). Also, Rob Bensinger, who was previously outreach coordinator, is promoted to the role of research communications manager.[170]
2016 April 1–3 Workshop The Self-Reference, Type Theory, and Formal Verification takes place.[113]
2016 May 6 (talk), December 28 (transcript release) Publication In May 2016, Eliezer Yudkowsky gives a talk titled "AI Alignment: Why It’s Hard, and Where to Start." On December 28, 2016, an edited version of the transcript is released on the MIRI blog.[171][172]
2016 May 28–29 Workshop The Colloquium Series on Robust and Beneficial AI (CSRBAI) Workshop on Transparency takes place.[113]
2016 June 4–5 Workshop The Colloquium Series on Robust and Beneficial AI (CSRBAI) Workshop on Robustness and Error-Tolerance takes place.[113]
2016 June 11–12 Workshop The Colloquium Series on Robust and Beneficial AI (CSRBAI) Workshop on Preference Specification takes place.[113]
2016 June 17 Workshop The Colloquium Series on Robust and Beneficial AI (CSRBAI) Workshop on Agent Models and Multi-Agent Dilemmas takes place.[113]
2016 July 27 MIRI announces its machine learning technical agenda, called "Alignment for Advanced Machine Learning Systems".[173]
2016 August Financial Open Philanthropy awards a grant worth $500,000 to Machine Intelligence Research Institute. The grant writeup notes, "Despite our strong reservations about the technical research we reviewed, we felt that awarding $500,000 was appropriate for multiple reasons".[174]
2016 August 12–14 Workshop The 8th Workshop on Logic, Probability, and Reflection takes place.[113]
2016 August 26–28 Workshop The 1st Workshop on Machine Learning and AI Safety takes place.[113]
2016 September 12 Publication MIRI announces the release of its new paper, "Logical Induction" by Scott Garrabrant, Tsvi Benson-Tilsen, Andrew Critch, Nate Soares, and Jessica Taylor.[175][176] A positive review of the paper by a machine learning researcher would be cited as a reason for Open Philanthropy's grant to MIRI in October 2017.
2016 October 12 MIRI does an "ask me anything" (AMA) on the Effective Altruism Forum.[177]
2016 October 21–23 Workshop The 2nd Workshop on Machine Learning and AI Safety takes place.[113]
2016 November 11–13 Workshop The 9th Workshop on Logic, Probability, and Reflection takes place.[113]
2016 December Financial Open Philanthropy awards a grant worth $32,000 to AI Impacts.[178]
2016 December 1–3 Workshop The 3rd Workshop on Machine Learning and AI Safety takes place.[113]
2017 March 25–26 Workshop The Workshop on Agent Foundations and AI Safety takes place.[113]
2017 April 1–2 Workshop The 4th Workshop on Machine Learning and AI Safety takes place.[113]
2017 May 24 Publication "When Will AI Exceed Human Performance? Evidence from AI Experts" is published on the arXiv.[179] Two researchers from AI Impacts are authors on the paper. The paper would be mentioned in more than twenty news articles.[180]
2017 July 4 Strategy MIRI announces that it will be putting relatively little work into the "Alignment for Advanced Machine Learning Systems" agenda over the next year due to the departure of Patrick LaVictoire and Jessica Taylor, and leave taken by Andrew Critch.[181]
2017 July 7 Outside review Daniel Dewey, program officer for potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence at Open Philanthropy, publishes a post giving his thoughts on MIRI's work on highly reliable agent design. The post is intended to provide "an unambiguous snapshot" of Dewey's beliefs, and gives the case for highly reliable agent design work (as he understands it) and why he finds other approaches (such as learning to reason from humans) more promising.[182]
2017 July 14 Outside review The timelines wiki page on MIRI is publicly circulated (see § External links).
2017 October 13 Publication "Functional Decision Theory: A New Theory of Instrumental Rationality" by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares is posted to the arXiv.[183] The paper is announced on the Machine Intelligence Research Institute blog on October 22.[184]
2017 October 13 Publication Eliezer Yudkowsky's blog post There's No Fire Alarm for Artificial General Intelligence is published on the MIRI blog and on the new LessWrong (this is shortly after the launch of the new version of LessWrong).[185][186]
2017 October Financial Open Philanthropy awards MIRI a grant of $3.75 million over three years ($1.25 million per year). The cited reasons for the grant are a "very positive review" of MIRI's "Logical Induction" paper by an "outstanding" machine learning researcher, as well as Open Philanthropy having made more grants in the area so that a grant to MIRI is less likely to appear as an "outsized endorsement of MIRI's approach".[187][188]
2017 November 16 Publication Eliezer Yudkowsky's sequence/book Inadequate Equilibria is fully published. The book was published chapter-by-chapter on LessWrong 2.0 and the Effective Altruism Forum starting October 28.[189][190][191] The book is reviewed on multiple blogs including Slate Star Codex (Scott Alexander),[192] Shtetl-Optimized (Scott Aaronson),[193] and Overcoming Bias (Robin Hanson).[194] The book outlines Yudkowsky's approach to epistemology, covering topics such as whether to trust expert consensus and whether one can expect to do better than average.
2017 November 25, November 26 Publication A two-part series "Security Mindset and Ordinary Paranoia" and "Security Mindset and the Logistic Success Curve" by Eliezer Yudkowsky is published. The series uses the analogy of "security mindset" to highlight the importance and non-intuitiveness of AI safety. This is based on Eliezer Yudkowsky's 2016 talk "AI Alignment: Why It’s Hard, and Where to Start."[195][196]
2017 December 1 Financial MIRI's 2017 fundraiser begins. The announcement post describes MIRI's fundraising targets, recent work at MIRI (including recent hires), and MIRI's strategic background (which gives a high-level overview of how MIRI's work relates to long-term outcomes).[197] The fundraiser would conclude with $2.5 million raised from over 300 distinct donors. The largest donation would be from Vitalik Buterin ($763,970 worth of Ethereum).[198]
2018 February Workshop MIRI and the Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR) conduct the first AI Risk for Computer Scientists (AIRCS) workshop. This would be the first of several AIRCS workshops, with seven more in 2018 and many more in 2019.[199] The page about AIRCS says: "The material at the workshop is a mixture of human rationality content that’s loosely similar to some CFAR material, and a variety of topics related to AI risk, including thinking about forecasting, different people’s ideas of where the technical problems are, and various potential paths for research."[200]
2018 October 29 Project The launch of the AI Alignment Forum (often abbreviated to just "Alignment Forum") is announced on the MIRI blog. The Alignment Forum is built and maintained by the LessWrong 2.0 team (which is distinct from MIRI), but with help from MIRI. The Alignment Forum replaces MIRI's existing Intelligent Agent Foundations Forum, and is intended as "a single online hub for alignment researchers to have conversations about all ideas in the field".[201][202] The Alignment Forum had previously launched in beta on July 10, 2018,[203] with the day of launch chosen as the first "AI Alignment Writing Day" for the MIRI Summer Fellows Program (beginning an annual tradition).[204]
2018 October 29 – November 15 Publication The Embedded Agency sequence, by MIRI researchers Abram Demski and Scott Garrabrant, is published on the MIRI blog (text version),[205] on LessWrong 2.0 (illustrated version),[206] and on the Alignment Forum (illustrated version)[207] in serialized installments from October 29 to November 8; on November 15 a full-text version containing the entire sequence is published.[208] The term "embedded agency" is a renaming of an existing concept researched at MIRI, called "naturalized agency".[209]
2018 November 22 Strategy Nate Soares, executive director of MIRI, publishes MIRI's 2018 update post (the post was not written exclusively by Soares; see footnote 1, which begins "This post is an amalgam put together by a variety of MIRI staff"). The post describes new research directions at MIRI (which are not explained in detail due to MIRI's nondisclosure policy); explains the concept of "deconfusion" and why MIRI values it; announces MIRI's "nondisclosed-by-default" policy for most of its research; and gives a recruitment pitch for people to join MIRI.[210]
2018 November 26 Financial MIRI's 2018 fundraiser begins.[199] The fundraiser would conclude on December 31 with $951,817 raised from 348 donors.[211]
2018 August (joining) November 28 (announcement), December 1 (AMA) Staff MIRI announces that prolific Haskell developer Edward Kmett has joined.[212] Kmett participates in an Ask Me Anything (AMA) on Reddit's Haskell subreddit on December 1, 2018. In reply to questions, he clarifies that MIRI's nondisclosure policy will not affect the openness of his work, but as the main researcher at MIRI who publishes openly, he will feel more pressure to produce higher-quality work as the whole organization may be judged by the quality of his work.[213]
2018 December 15 Publication MIRI announces a new edition of Eliezer Yudkowsky's Rationality: From AI to Zombies (i.e. the book version of "the Sequences"). At the time of the announcement, the new edition of only two sequences, Map and Territory and How to Actually Change Your Mind, are available.[214][215]
2019 February Financial Open Philanthropy grants MIRI $2,112,500 over two years. The grant amount is decided by the Committee for Effective Altruism Support, which also decides on amounts for grants to 80,000 Hours and the Centre for Effective Altruism at around the same time.[216] The Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative (BERI) grants $600,000 to MIRI at around the same time. MIRI discusses both grants in a blog post.[217]
2019 April 23 Financial The Long-Term Future Fund announces that it is donating $50,000 to MIRI as part of this grant round. Oliver Habryka, the main grant investigator, explains the reasoning in detail, including his general positive impression of MIRI and his thoughts on funding gaps.[218]
2019 December Financial MIRI's 2019 fundraiser raises $601,120 from over 259 donors. A retrospective blog post on the fundraiser, published February 2020, discusses possible reasons the fundraiser raised less money than fundraisers in previous years, particularly 2017. Reasons include: lower cryptocurrency prices causing fewer donations from cryptocurrency donors, nondisclosed-by-default policy making it harder for donors to evaluate research, US tax law changes in 2018 causing more donation-bunching across years, fewer counterfactual matching opportunities, donor perception of reduced marginal value of donations, skew in donations from a few big donors, previous donors moving from earning-to-give to direct work, and donors responding to MIRI's urgent need for funds in previous years by donating in those years and having less to donate now.[219]
2020 February Financial Open Philanthropy grants $7,703,750 to MIRI over two years, with the money amount determined by the Committee for Effective Altruism Support (CEAS). Of the funding, $6.24 million comes from Good Ventures (the usual funding source) and $1.46 milion comes from Ben Delo, co-founder of BitMEX and recent Giving Pledgee signatory, via a co-funding partnership. Other organizations receiving money based on CEAS recommendations at around the same time are Ought (also focused on AI safety), the Centre for Effective Altruism, and 80,000 Hours.[220] MIRI would blog about the grant in April 2020, calling the grant "our largest grant to date."[221]
2020 March 2 Financial The Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative (BERI) grants $300,000 to MIRI. Writing about the grant in April 2020, MIRI says: "at the time of our 2019 fundraiser, we expected to receive a grant from BERI in early 2020, and incorporated this into our reserves estimates. However, we predicted the grant size would be $600k; now that we know the final grant amount, that estimate should be $300k lower."[221]
2020 April 14 Financial The Long-Term Future Fund grants $100,000 to MIRI.[222][221]
2020 May Financial The Survival and Flourishing Fund publishes the outcome of its recommendation S-process for the first half of 2020. This includes three grant recommendations to MIRI: $20,000 from SFF, $280,000 from Jaan Tallinn, and $40,000 from Jed McCaleb.[223] The grant from SFF to MIRI would also be included in SFF's grant list with a grant date of May 2020.[224]
2020 October 9 A Facebook post by Rob Bensinger, MIRI's research communications manager, says that MIRI is considering moving its office from its current location in Berkeley, California (in the San Francisco Bay Area) to another location in the United States or Canada. Two areas under active consideration are the Northeastern US (New Hampshire in particular) and the area surrounding Toronto. In response to a question about reasons, Bensinger clarifies that he cannot disclose reasons yet, but that he wanted to announce preemptively so that people can factor this uncertainty into any plans to move or to start new rationalist hubs.[225]
2020 October 22 Publication Scott Garrabrant publishes (cross-posted to LessWrong and the Effective Altruism Forum) a blog post titled "Introduction to Cartesian Frames" that is is first post in a sequence about Cartesian frames, a new conceptual framework for thinking about agency.[226][227]
2020 November (announcement) Financial Jaan Tallinn grants $543,000 to MIRI as an outcome of the S-process carried out by the Survival and Flourishing Fund for the second half of 2020.[228]
2020 November 30 (announcement) Financial In the November newsletter, MIRI announces that it will not be running a formal fundraiser this year, but that it will continue participating in Giving Tuesday and other matching opportunities.[229]
2020 December 21 Strategy Malo Bourgon publishes MIRI's "2020 Updates and Strategy" blog post. The post talks about MIRI's efforts to relocate staff after the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the generally positive result of the changes, and possible future implications for MIRI itself moving out of the Bay Area. It also talks about slow progress on the research directions initiated in 2017, leading to MIRI feeling the need to change course. The post also talks about the public part of MIRI's progress in other research areas.[230]
2021 May 8 Rob Bensinger publishes a post on LessWrong providing an update on MIRI's current thoughts regarding the possibility of relocation from the San Francisco Bay Area.[231]
2021 May 13 Financial MIRI announces two major donations to it: $15,592,829 in MakerDAO (MKR) from an anonymous donor with a restriction to spend a maximum of $2.5 million per year till 2024, and the remaining funds available in 2025, and 1050 ETH from Vitalik Buterin, worth $4,378,159.[232]
2021 May 23 In a talk, MIRI researcher Scott Garrabrandt describes "finite factored sets" and usees it to introduce an "alternative to the Pearlian paradigm."[233]
2021 July 1 An update is added to Rob Bensinger's May 8 post about MIRI moving from the San Francisco Bay Area. The update links to a comment by MIRI board member Blake Borgeson, who had been tasked with leading/coordinating MIRI's relocation decision process. The update says that for now, MIRI has decided against moving from its current location, citing uncertainty about long-term strategy and trajectory. However, MIRI will show more flexibility in terms of its staff working remotely.[231]
2021 November 15 In the period around this date, several private conversations between MIRI people (Eliezer Yudkowsky, Nate Soares, and Rob Bensinger) and others in the AI safety community (Richard Ngo, Jaan Tallinn, Paul Christiano, Ajeya Cotra, Beth Barnes, Carl Shulman, Holden Karnofsky, and Rohin Shah) are published to the Alignment Forum and cross-posted to LessWrong; some are also cross-posted to the Effective Altruism Forum. On November 15, Rob Bensinger creates a sequence "Late 2021 MIRI Conversations" on the Alignment Forum for these posts.[234]
2021 November 29 MIRI announces on the Alignment Forum that it is looking for assistance with getting datasets for its Visible Thoughts Project. The hypothesis is described as follows: "Language models can be made more understandable (and perhaps also more capable, though this is not the goal) by training them to produce visible thoughts."[235]
2021 December Financial MIRI offers $200,000 to build an AI-dungeon-style writing dataset annotated with thoughts, and an additional $1,000,000 for scaling it 10x.[236]
2022 May 30 Publication The article "Six Dimensions of Operational Adequacy in AGI Projects," written by Eliezer Yudkowsky, is published on LessWrong. This post introduces six key dimensions that determine the operational adequacy of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) projects. The dimensions focus on ensuring that AGI systems are developed with sufficient safety, oversight, and alignment with human goals. The article emphasizes the importance of addressing each dimension to mitigate potential risks associated with AGI and to ensure responsible project execution.[237]
2022 June 5 Publication Eliezer Yudkowsky's article "AGI Ruin: A List of Lethalities" is published on LessWrong. In this comprehensive post, Yudkowsky outlines numerous potential scenarios and mechanisms through which Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) could lead to catastrophic outcomes. He argues that these risks are often underestimated or misunderstood, emphasizing the urgent need for robust safety measures and thoughtful consideration of AGI's development trajectory. Yudkowsky's detailed analysis and stark warnings aim to provoke deeper reflection and action within the AI research community.[238]
2022 April 25 Publication The article "Visible Thoughts Project and Bounty Announcement" is published on LessWrong. The post announces MIRI's offer of $200,000 to build an AI-dungeon-style writing dataset annotated with thoughts, along with an additional $1,000,000 for scaling the project 10x. This initiative aims to develop datasets that can help in understanding and modeling AI systems' internal reasoning processes more effectively.[239]
2022 July Strategy MIRI temporarily pauses its newsletter and public communications to focus on refining internal strategies.[240]
2023 February 20 Publication Eliezer Yudkowsky appears on the Bankless podcast for an interview lasting a little under two hours, where he shares his relatively pessimistic views about the likelihood of catastrophic AGI with his hosts, neither of whom is deep into AI safety.[241] He also mentions he is taking a sabbatical due to burnout and the inevitable doom. He mentions considering potential ideas of working with other organizations such as Anthropic, Conjecture, or Redwood Research, noting that Redwood Research is "small" but that he trusts them and that they can also focus on one stream. A full transcript is published to LessWrong and the Alignment Forum a few days later.[242] The podcast gets a lot of traction, eliciting several reactions, and leads to a followup Q&A on Twitter Spaces.[243] A month later, a lengthy point-by-point response by alignment researcher Quintin Pope is published to LessWrong, attracting over 200 comments.[244]
2023 March 29 Publication An article by Eliezer Yudkowsky in Time Ideas, in response to the FLI Open Letter, argues that pausing AI for six months isn't enough. He says that what is needed won't happen in practice, but spells it out anyway: "The moratorium on new large training runs needs to be indefinite and worldwide. There can be no exceptions, including for governments or militaries. [...] Shut down all the large GPU clusters (the large computer farms where the most powerful AIs are refined). Shut down all the large training runs. Put a ceiling on how much computing power anyone is allowed to use in training an AI system, and move it downward over the coming years to compensate for more efficient training algorithms. No exceptions for governments and militaries. Make immediate multinational agreements to prevent the prohibited activities from moving elsewhere. [...] Frame nothing as a conflict between national interests, have it clear that anyone talking of arms races is a fool. [...] Shut it all down."[245] The post is shared to LessWrong where it receives over 250 comments.[246]
2023 April Leadership MIRI undergoes a significant leadership change: Malo Bourgon is appointed as CEO, Nate Soares transitions to President, Alex Vermeer becomes COO, and Eliezer Yudkowsky assumes the role of Chair of the Board.[247]
2023 June 19 Publication Paul Christiano publishes an article titled "Where I Agree and Disagree with Eliezer" on the AI Alignment Forum and also cross-posted in LessWrong. [248] Christiano outlines areas of alignment and divergence with Eliezer Yudkowsky's perspectives on AI alignment. He agrees with Yudkowsky on the severity of risks posed by advanced AI but critiques Yudkowsky's pessimism about alignment research. Christiano emphasizes the potential of empirical approaches and the importance of societal and collaborative dynamics in addressing AI safety, advocating for a balanced view of both theoretical and practical research in AI alignment.[249]
2024 Jan 14 Strategy MIRI publishes a comprehensive update on its mission and strategy for 2024. The update outlines several key changes and reaffirmations in their approach to AI alignment research. MIRI emphasizes a shift towards more rigorous theoretical work and empirical validation, acknowledging past challenges and the evolving landscape of AI development. They stress the importance of transparency, collaboration, and adaptive strategies to address complex AI alignment issues. The post encourages the AI safety community to engage with their updated strategy and provide feedback.[250][251]
2024 March 9 Publication An article in Semafor titled "The Risks of Expanding the Definition of AI Safety" discusses concerns raised by Eliezer Yudkowsky about the broadening scope of AI safety. Yudkowsky, a long-time advocate for recognising the existential risks posed by AI, argues that conflating various AI-related issues—such as the threat of human extinction and algorithmic bias—under one term is misguided. He states, "You want different names for the project of ‘having AIs not kill everyone’ and ‘have AIs used by banks make fair loans.’" Yudkowsky warns that broadening definitions can dilute the focus on existential risks and hinder effective problem-solving by lumping together fundamentally different issues.[252]
2024 April Project MIRI launches a new research team dedicated to technical AI governance. The team, currently consisting of Lisa Thiergart and Peter Barnett, aims to scale to 5–8 people by the end of the year. The team will focus on researching and designing technical aspects of regulation and policy to achieve safe AI, with particular attention to proposals that remain effective as AI progresses towards superintelligence. Their work includes investigating limitations in current proposals such as Responsible Scaling Policies (RSPs), responding to requests for comments from policy bodies like NIST, the EU, and the UN, researching possible amendments to RSPs and alternative safety standards, and consulting with policymakers.[253]
2024 May Project The Technical Governance Team at MIRI takes an active role in contributing to AI policy development by submitting responses to multiple key policy bodies. These submissions include the NTIA's request for comment on open-weight AI models, focusing on the implications of making AI model weights publicly available and the potential risks and benefits associated with open-access AI technology.[254] They also respond to the United Nations’ request for feedback on the "Governing AI for Humanity" interim report, offering insights on global AI governance frameworks and how they can be structured to prioritize safety, transparency, and ethical considerations.[255] Additionally, the team addresses the Office of Management and Budget’s request for information on AI procurement in government, providing recommendations on how AI technologies can be integrated responsibly within government infrastructures.[256] This proactive engagement highlights MIRI’s strategic involvement in shaping international AI governance and ensuring that safety and ethical standards are maintained in the development and use of AI technologies.[257]
2024 May 14 Project MIRI announces the shutdown of the Visible Thoughts Project, initiated in November 2021 to develop a dataset for AI model transparency. The project aimed to address AI alignment but faced numerous challenges. These included rapidly evolving needs in the machine learning field and limited traction despite offering over $1 million in incentives. Delays in the dataset's availability reduced its relevance, leading to the decision to terminate the project.[258]
2024 May 29 Publication MIRI publishes their 2024 Communications Strategy, focusing on convincing major powers to halt the development of frontier AI systems worldwide. The strategy emphasizes direct, unvarnished messaging to policymakers, their advisors, and the general public, aiming to make AI existential risks a mainstream concern. The plan includes producing a new website, a book for general audiences, and a detailed online reference. MIRI explicitly avoids grassroots advocacy and building demos of AI capabilities, focusing instead on impactful, honest communication.[259]
2024 June 7 Publication Rob Bensinger publishes a response to Daniel Kokotajlo's discussion of Aschenbrenner's views on situational awareness in AI. Bensinger critiques Kokotajlo's interpretation, highlighting that Kokotajlo overlooks key complexities in situational awareness and its implications for AI safety. He argues that Kokotajlo misrepresents Aschenbrenner's arguments and stresses the importance of understanding the nuanced challenges in AI situational awareness to ensure robust AI safety measures.[260]
2024 June Research The Agent Foundations team, including Scott Garrabrant, departs MIRI to work independently. Originally sponsored by Nate Soares and Eliezer Yudkowsky, the team’s focus shifts as rapid AI advancements prompt MIRI to prioritize other areas. The team's work centered on formal agent foundations for AI alignment, aiming to develop foundational research for ensuring future AI systems are reliably aligned with human interest.[261]

Numerical and visual data

Google Scholar

The following table summarizes per-year mentions on Google Scholar as of October 1, 2021.

Year "Machine Intelligence Research Institute"
2000 0
2001 2
2002 0
2003 0
2004 1
2005 0
2006 0
2007 1
2008 0
2009 5
2010 7
2011 6
2012 6
2013 29
2014 61
2015 72
2016 93
2017 128
2018 134
2019 127
2020 138
Machine Intelligence Research Institute gsch.png

Google Trends

The comparative chart below shows Google Trends data Machine Intelligence Research Institute (Research institute) and Machine Intelligence Research Institute (Search term), from January 2004 to March 2021, when the screenshot was taken. Interest is also ranked by country and displayed on world map.[262]

Machine Intelligence Research Institute gt.png

Google Ngram Viewer

The chart below shows Google Ngram Viewer data for Machine Intelligence Research Institute, from 2000 to 2019.[263]

Machine Intelligence Research Institute ngram.png

Wikipedia desktop pageviews across the different names

The image below shows desktop pageviews of the page Machine Intelligence Research Institute and its predecessor pages, "Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence" and "Singularity Institute".[264] The change in names occurred on these dates:[265][266]

  • December 23, 2011: Two pages "Singularity Institute" and "Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence" merged into single page "Singularty Institute for Artificial Intelligence"
  • April 16, 2012: Page moved from "Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence" to "Singularity Institute" with the old name redirecting to the new name
  • February 1, 2013: Page moved from "Singularity Institute" to "Machine Intelligence Research Institute" with both old names redirecting to the new name

The red vertical line (for June 2015) represents a change in the method of estimating pageviews; specifically, pageviews by bots and spiders are excluded for months on the right of the line.

MIRI wv.jpeg


Meta information on the timeline

How the timeline was built

The initial version of the timeline was written by Issa Rice.

Issa likes to work locally and track changes with Git, so the revision history on this wiki only shows changes in bulk. To see more incremental changes, refer to the commit history.

Funding information for this timeline is available.

Feedback and comments

Feedback for the timeline can be provided at the following places:

What the timeline is still missing

  • TODO Figure out how to cover publications
  • TODO mention kurzweil
  • TODO maybe include some of the largest donations (e.g. the XRP/ETH ones, tallinn, thiel)
  • TODO maybe fundraisers
  • TODO look more closely through some AMAs: [1], [2]
  • TODO maybe more info in this SSC post [3]
  • TODO more links at EA Wikia page [4]
  • TODO lots of things from strategy updates, annual reviews, etc. [5]
  • TODO Ben Goertzel talks about his involvement with MIRI [6], also more on opencog
  • TODO giant thread on Ozy's blog [7]
  • NOTE From 2017-07-06: "years that have few events so far: 2003 (one event), 2007 (one event), 2008 (three events), 2010 (three events), 2017 (three events)"
  • TODO possibly include more from the old MIRI volunteers site. Some of the volunteering opportunities like proofreading and promoting MIRI by giving it good web of trust ratings seem to give a good flavor of what MIRI was like, the specific challenges in terms of switching domains, and so on.
  • TODO cover Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative (BERI), kinda a successor to MIRI volunteers?
  • TODO cover launch of Center for Human-Compatible AI
  • TODO not sure how exactly to include this in the timeline, but something about MIRI's changing approach to funding certain types of contract work. e.g. Vipul says "I believe the work I did with Luke would no longer be sponsored by MIRI as their research agenda is now much more narrowly focused on the mathematical parts."
  • TODO who is Tyler Emerson?
  • modal combat and some other domains: [8], [9], [10]
  • https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yGZHQYqWkLMbXy3z7/video-q-and-a-with-singularity-institute-executive-director
  • https://ea.greaterwrong.com/posts/NBgpPaz5vYe3tH4ga/on-deference-and-yudkowsky-s-ai-risk-estimates

Timeline update strategy

Some places to look on the MIRI blog:

Also general stuff like big news coverage.

See also

External links

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Nate Soares (June 3, 2015). "Taking the reins at MIRI". LessWrong. Retrieved July 5, 2017. 
  2. ↑ "lukeprog comments on "Thoughts on the Singularity Institute"". LessWrong. May 10, 2012. Retrieved July 15, 2012. 
  3. ↑ "Halfwitz comments on "Breaking the vicious cycle"". LessWrong. November 23, 2014. Retrieved August 3, 2017. 
  4. ↑ Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (August 31, 2000). "Eliezer, the person". Archived from the original on February 5, 2001. 
  5. ↑ "Yudkowsky - Staring into the Singularity 1.2.5". Retrieved June 1, 2017. 
  6. ↑ Eliezer S. Yudkowsky. "Coding a Transhuman AI". Retrieved July 5, 2017. 
  7. ↑ Eliezer S. Yudkowsky. "Singularitarian mailing list". Retrieved July 5, 2017. The "Singularitarian" mailing list was first launched on Sunday, March 11th, 1999, to assist in the common goal of reaching the Singularity. It will do so by pooling the resources of time, brains, influence, and money available to Singularitarians; by enabling us to draw on the advice and experience of the whole; by bringing together individuals with compatible ideas and complementary resources; and by binding the Singularitarians into a community. 
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Eliezer S. Yudkowsky. "PtS: Version History". Retrieved July 4, 2017. 
  9. ↑ "Yudkowsky's Coming of Age - Lesswrongwiki". LessWrong. Retrieved January 30, 2018. 
  10. ↑ "My Naturalistic Awakening - Less Wrong". LessWrong. Retrieved January 30, 2018. 
  11. ↑ "jacob_cannell comments on [link] FLI's recommended project grants for AI safety research announced - Less Wrong". LessWrong. Retrieved January 30, 2018. 
  12. ↑ Eliezer S. Yudkowsky. "Singularitarian Principles 1.0". Retrieved July 5, 2017. 
  13. ↑ "SL4: By Date". Retrieved June 1, 2017. 
  14. ↑ Eliezer S. Yudkowsky. "SL4 Mailing List". Retrieved June 1, 2017. 
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Eliezer S. Yudkowsky. "Coding a Transhuman AI § Version History". Retrieved July 5, 2017. 
  16. ↑ "Form 990-EZ 2000" (PDF). Retrieved June 1, 2017. Organization was incorporated in July 2000 and does not have a financial history for years 1996-1999. 
  17. ↑ "About the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence". Retrieved July 1, 2017. The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Inc. (SIAI) was incorporated on July 27th, 2000 by Brian Atkins, Sabine Atkins (then Sabine Stoeckel) and Eliezer Yudkowsky. The Singularity Institute is a nonprofit corporation governed by the Georgia Nonprofit Corporation Code, and is federally tax-exempt as a 501(c)(3) public charity. At this time, the Singularity Institute is funded solely by individual donors. 
  18. ↑ Eliezer S. Yudkowsky. "Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Inc.". Retrieved July 4, 2017. 
  19. ↑ Eliezer S. Yudkowsky. "Singularity Institute: News". Retrieved July 1, 2017. April 08, 2001: The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Inc. announces that it has received tax-exempt status and is now accepting donations. 
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 "Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence // News // Archive". Retrieved July 13, 2017. 
  21. ↑ Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. "SIAI Guidelines on Friendly AI". Retrieved July 13, 2017. 
  22. ↑ Eliezer Yudkowsky (2001). "Creating Friendly AI 1.0: The Analysis and Design of Benevolent Goal Architectures" (PDF). The Singularity Institute. Retrieved July 5, 2017. 
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 23.3 23.4 Eliezer S. Yudkowsky. "Singularity Institute: News". Retrieved July 1, 2017. 
  24. ↑ "SL4: By Thread". Retrieved July 1, 2017. 
  25. ↑ Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (April 7, 2002). "SL4: PAPER: Levels of Organization in General Intelligence". Retrieved July 5, 2017. 
  26. ↑ Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. "Levels of Organization in General Intelligence". Retrieved July 5, 2017. 
  27. ↑ "SL4: By Thread". Retrieved July 1, 2017. 
  28. ↑ "FlareProgrammingLanguage". SL4 Wiki. September 14, 2007. Retrieved July 13, 2017. 
  29. ↑ "Yudkowsky - Bayes' Theorem". Retrieved July 5, 2017. Eliezer Yudkowsky's work is supported by the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. If you've found Yudkowsky's pages on rationality useful, please consider donating to the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. 
  30. ↑ Yudkowsky, Eliezer (April 30, 2003). "Singularity Institute - update". SL4. 
  31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 31.2 31.3 31.4 31.5 31.6 31.7 "News of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence". Retrieved July 4, 2017. 
  32. ↑ "Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence // The SIAI Voice". Retrieved July 4, 2017. On March 4, 2004, the Singularity Institute announced Tyler Emerson as our Executive Director. Emerson will be responsible for guiding the Institute. His focus is in nonprofit management, marketing, relationship fundraising, leadership and planning. He will seek to cultivate a larger and more cohesive community that has the necessary resources to develop Friendly AI. 
  33. ↑ Tyler Emerson (April 7, 2004). "SL4: Michael Anissimov - SIAI Advocacy Director". Retrieved July 1, 2017. The Singularity Institute announces Michael Anissimov as our Advocacy Director. Michael has been an active volunteer for two years, and one of the more prominent voices in the singularity community. He is committed and thoughtful, and we feel very fortunate to have him help lead our advocacy. 
  34. ↑ "Machine Intelligence Research Institute: This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 63.201.36.156 (talk) at 19:28, 14 April 2004.". Retrieved July 15, 2017. 
  35. ↑ Eliezer Yudkowsky. "Coherent Extrapolated Volition" (PDF). Retrieved July 1, 2017. The information is current as of May 2004, and should not become dreadfully obsolete until late June, when I plant to have an unexpected insight. 
  36. ↑ "Collective Volition". Retrieved July 4, 2017. 
  37. ↑ "Yudkowsky - Technical Explanation". Retrieved July 5, 2017. Eliezer Yudkowsky's work is supported by the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. 
  38. ↑ 38.0 38.1 38.2 38.3 38.4 38.5 38.6 38.7 38.8 Brandon Reinhart. "SIAI - An Examination - Less Wrong". LessWrong. Retrieved June 30, 2017. 
  39. ↑ "SL4: By Thread". Retrieved July 1, 2017. 
  40. ↑ "The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence - 2006 $100,000 Singularity Challenge". Retrieved July 5, 2017. 
  41. ↑ "Thiel Foundation donations made to Machine Intelligence Research Institute". Retrieved September 15, 2019. 
  42. ↑ "Twelve Virtues of Rationality". Retrieved July 5, 2017. Eliezer Yudkowsky's work is supported by the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. 
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  73. ↑ "lukeprog comments on Thoughts on the Singularity Institute (SI) - Less Wrong". LessWrong. Retrieved June 30, 2017. So little monitoring of funds that $118k was stolen in 2010 before SI noticed. (Note that we have won stipulated judgments to get much of this back, and have upcoming court dates to argue for stipulated judgments to get the rest back.) 
  74. ↑ "cjb comments on SIAI Fundraising". LessWrong. Retrieved July 8, 2017. 
  75. ↑ "Almanac Almanac: Police Calls (December 23, 2009)". Retrieved July 8, 2017. Embezzlement report: Alicia Issac, 37, of Sunnyvale arrested on embezzlement, larceny and conspiracy charges in connection with $51,000 loss, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence in 1400 block of Adams Drive, Dec. 10. 
  76. ↑ "Reply to Holden on The Singularity Institute". LessWrong. July 10, 2012. Retrieved June 30, 2017. Two former employees stole $118,000 from SI. Earlier this year we finally won stipulated judgments against both individuals, forcing them to pay back the full amounts they stole. We have already recovered several thousand dollars of this. 
  77. ↑ "Form 990 2010" (PDF). Retrieved July 8, 2017. 
  78. ↑ "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality Chapter 1: A Day of Very Low Probability, a harry potter fanfic". FanFiction. Retrieved July 1, 2017. Updated: 3/14/2015 - Published: 2/28/2010 
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  82. ↑ Sotala, Kaj (October 7, 2010). "Greg Egan disses stand-ins for Overcoming Bias, SIAI in new book". Retrieved July 15, 2017. 
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  91. ↑ "lukeprog comments on Thoughts on the Singularity Institute (SI)". LessWrong. Retrieved June 30, 2017. When I began to intern with the Singularity Institute in April 2011, I felt uncomfortable suggesting that people donate to SingInst, because I could see it from the inside and it wasn't pretty. 
  92. ↑ Holden Karnofsky. "Re: [givewell] Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence". Yahoo! Groups. Retrieved July 4, 2017. 
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  100. ↑ Frank, Sam (January 1, 2015). "Come With Us If You Want to Live. Among the apocalyptic libertarians of Silicon Valley". Harper's Magazine. Retrieved July 15, 2017. Vassar had left to found MetaMed, a personalized-medicine company, with Jaan Tallinn of Skype and Kazaa, $500,000 from Peter Thiel, and a staff that included young rationalists who had cut their teeth arguing on Yudkowsky’s website. The idea behind MetaMed was to apply rationality to medicine — "rationality" here defined as the ability to properly research, weight, and synthesize the flawed medical information that exists in the world. Prices ranged from $25,000 for a literature review to a few hundred thousand for a personalized study. "We can save lots and lots and lots of lives," Vassar said (if mostly moneyed ones at first). "But it’s the signal — it's the 'Hey! Reason works!' — that matters. It's not really about medicine." Our whole society was sick — root, branch, and memeplex — and rationality was the only cure. 
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  110. ↑ "November 2012 Newsletter". Machine Intelligence Research Institute. November 7, 2012. Retrieved July 14, 2017. Over the past couple of months we thought hard about how to improve our volunteer program, with the goal of finding a system that makes it easier to engage volunteers, create a sense of community, and quantify volunteer contributions. After evaluating several different volunteer management platforms, we decided to partner with Youtopia — a young company with a lot of promise — and make heavy use of Google Docs. 
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  118. ↑ "Form 990 2013" (PDF). Retrieved July 8, 2017. 
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  121. ↑ "March Newsletter". Machine Intelligence Research Institute. March 7, 2013. Retrieved July 1, 2017. Due to Singularity University's acquisition of the Singularity Summit and some major changes to MIRI's public communications strategy, Michael Anissimov left MIRI in January 2013. Michael continues to support our mission and continues to volunteer for us. 
  122. ↑ "We are now the "Machine Intelligence Research Institute" (MIRI)". Machine Intelligence Research Institute. January 30, 2013. Retrieved June 30, 2017. 
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  145. ↑ Victoria Krakovna. "New organization - Future of Life Institute (FLI)". LessWrong. Retrieved July 6, 2017. As of May 2014, there is an existential risk research and outreach organization based in the Boston area. The Future of Life Institute (FLI), spearheaded by Max Tegmark, was co-founded by Jaan Tallinn, Meia Chita-Tegmark, Anthony Aguirre and myself. 
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  150. ↑ "Machine Intelligence Research Institute - Photos". Facebook. Retrieved May 27, 2018. 
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  155. ↑ Benja Fallenstein. "Welcome!". Intelligent Agent Foundations Forum. Retrieved June 30, 2017. post by Benja Fallenstein 969 days ago 
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