Per Kaj's suggestion, I'm posting my list of useful things volunteers can do right now. Without help, most of these things won't occur, because I need to be spending my time writing papers, promoting the Singularity Summit, collaborating with other researchers, improving Singularity Institute's transparency, etc.
Previously, I tried to have volunteers contact me so that I could assign people tasks, but that has become too time consuming (as Eliezer predicted), largely because (in my experience) the odds that a volunteer will actually perform a task given that they've agreed to perform it are very low.
So, I'll post my list here and hope that a few people self-organize to get some of them done. It's worth a shot! My sincere thanks to anyone completes any task on this list.
Translate the Singularity FAQ into other languages, besides English and Italian.
I have about 8 fashion photos each from 3 minicampers, which need to be shown in random order to 5 straight females (in meatspace) who will judge which they prefer. I have the exact experimental design and the photos. Please email me [lukeprog at gmail] if you'd like to do this; it's perfect for somebody social.
Begin to develop a list of AI technology predictions; a step on this path is to create a list of sources for AI technology predictions. We want to eventually be able to write up a report of correlates between predictions and the properties of prediction-makers at the time of their predictions.
Find out how much money the U.S. government/military has spent researching machine ethics (e.g. via Ronald Arkin), and how much of that money was given to whom and for which projects (citing sources along the way).
Work with XiXiDu to interview (via email) more AI researchers about AI risks; see here.
Come up with ways to illustrate the idea of an intelligence explosion or friendly ai with a static graphic or a very short animation; create those graphics or animations if possible.
Find a free tool that backs up all your Google Docs, and is available for Mac, Linux, or PC. (thanks Dreaded_Anomaly!)
Research nootropics for rationality, especially for increasing cognitive reflectiveness / need for cognition. Make a list of recent, useful papers on the topic.
Join the Less Wrong Public Goods Team google group and work on, for example, the project of making it much easier to add features to Less Wrong.
If you live in Berkeley and want to work directly with me on tasks, even better. I have a bottomless need for in-person personal assistants who want to do things that decrease existential risk, and you'll get to see the inner workings of an org currently making a run at being the world's leading independent transhumanist organization.
Find a free tool that backs up all your Google Docs, and is available for Mac, Linux, or PC.
Method #1: Use the Google Docs built-in export function. Go to your list of documents, click the check box next to "Actions" in order to select all, then click Actions -> Download. This brings up a menu that allows you to select the file formats for the documents. There is a size limit: "You can export up to 2 GB at a time."
Method #2: Use the Google Docs Download GreaseMonkey script, which produces a page with export links for each of your documents. The DownThemAll! add-on can be used to grab all of the links at once. (Note that this method requires Mozilla Firefox.)
Method #3: Use GDocBackup, a utility which "runs on Windows (tested on XP, Vista and 7), Linux (tested on Ubuntu 8.10 and OpenSuse 11.1) and Mac (tested on OS X 10.5.6)." After making a backup for the first time, this program can download only modified documents for subsequent backups.
Google Docs' built-in export function fails. It doesn't give an error, but it only exports 20-50 documents on each try.
The Google Docs Download GreaseMonkey script works, but DownThemAll pauses for 30-90 seconds between each document download, and thus would take days to download all my documents.
GDocBackup used to work but now it doesn't.
My current working solution is to use Firefox + GDD + FlashGot + iGetter. When downloading stops working on the iGetter queue, I need to click 'Pause All', wait 10 seconds, then click 'Start A... (read more)
Per Kaj's suggestion, I'm posting my list of useful things volunteers can do right now. Without help, most of these things won't occur, because I need to be spending my time writing papers, promoting the Singularity Summit, collaborating with other researchers, improving Singularity Institute's transparency, etc.
Previously, I tried to have volunteers contact me so that I could assign people tasks, but that has become too time consuming (as Eliezer predicted), largely because (in my experience) the odds that a volunteer will actually perform a task given that they've agreed to perform it are very low.
So, I'll post my list here and hope that a few people self-organize to get some of them done. It's worth a shot! My sincere thanks to anyone completes any task on this list.
I have about 8 fashion photos each from 3 minicampers, which need to be shown in random order to 5 straight females (in meatspace) who will judge which they prefer. I have the exact experimental design and the photos. Please email me [lukeprog at gmail] if you'd like to do this; it's perfect for somebody social.Find a free tool that backs up all your Google Docs, and is available for Mac, Linux, or PC.(thanks Dreaded_Anomaly!)Research nootropics for rationality, especially for increasing cognitive reflectiveness / need for cognition. Make a list of recent, useful papers on the topic.If you live in Berkeley and want to work directly with me on tasks, even better. I have a bottomless need for in-person personal assistants who want to do things that decrease existential risk, and you'll get to see the inner workings of an org currently making a run at being the world's leading independent transhumanist organization.