Wiki Interview With Eliezer/The Singularity Institute

The Singularity Institute

What are the present approximate short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals of the Singularity Institute?

In the short-term - but longer-term than immediate tactical stuff like "publish a Web page on this-and-that" - our goal is to acquire enough funding to put the organization on a more solid basis, and hopefully enough funding to begin seed AI development. In the mid-term, I would think that pretty much the sole goal would be initiating and continuing to support the AI project. As for our long-term goals, that of course is the Singularity.

Why is SIAI interested in hiring an Executive Director? What type of qualifications are you seeking? What type of activities or duties would that individual perform?

SIAI now has enough money in the bank that we can afford to pay a perfect Executive Director a tiny amount of money, but not yet enough to pay an exceptional Executive Director a small amount of money. It is not absolutely impossible that a perfect Executive Director will happen along - we are doing something worth doing, after all. A perfect Executive Director would be a good writer, would have previous experience in philanthropy management, fundraising, and volunteer coordination, and would have a fully developed understanding of the Singularity and enough passion and charisma to be a good speaker about it. The duties would be to build the Singularity Institute into an organization that can support the AI project.

Currently the Singularity Institute has around $12,000 in the bank. [01/11/03: To my knowledge, the Institute's outside funding is presently around $45,000.] Anything more specific about how much the Executive Director would be paid would be negotiated with a specific candidate and not in an online interview, but obviously, unless you're willing to work for free, you'd have to find more funding pretty fast no matter how low a salary you were willing to accept.

What type of involvement does Brian and Sabine Atkins have in promoting the Institute and its goals? What type of future involvement will they have? What future activities will they be engaging in?

Mainly, Brian and Sabine Atkins contribute funding, and Sabine did SIAI's current website. Neither of them think they would be good at writing papers or at public speaking, so that's around it.