Send copies of Global Catastrophic Risks to lists of bright young students
This may come across as spamming and will likely send crank signals.
I dunno. It's a book. If anyone sends me a book, I'll consider keeping it and likely look at the first couple of pages, even if it's Dianetics or The Book of Mormon. I don't regard books as the physical and memetic pollution that spam is.
If I got a vanity-press book like this, I'd regard it as cranky non-spam. But Global Catastrophic Risks is published by Oxford University Press, which matches the pattern "legitimate" rather than "crank".
If I got a religious text, I'd be unimpressed. But Global Catastrophic Risks differs from a religious text in that it's a collection of essays by different authors who no doubt disagree about many things, rather than a canonized text that's regarded as perfect. And the hidden agenda of someone who gives me Global Catastrophic Risks is to get me thinking about global catastrophic risks — which is pretty reasonable, although not universally compelling. It would be much less creepy than receiving a Bible.
In summary, while JoshuaZ might have been turned off by receiving a book when he was a mathematically talented youth, I wouldn't have. So, that's two data points.
tl;dr: Please send me a copy of the Book of Mormon.
This is basically my approach of choice, and I am very happy to see SI pursuing it. That said, I would like to make a couple of comments:
Specifically, we're looking for young talent in math and compsci, because young talent is...(3) better at inventing new math (due to cognitive decline with age).
So, if Edward Witten (age 60)* called you up tomorrow and said he was interested in working on Friendly AI, you would tell him to get lost? I think not. At least, I hope not.
I'm not saying you should target older people in your recruitment activities. (As if that were even possible.) But I am strongly advising against getting into any kind of mindset where you would end up closing the door on any mathematically accomplished people who happen to see the light on this matter.
AGI really might be decades or more away. The people who are "young" now won't be that way forever. You may want their help in the future. In particular, you may want the help of a future John Baez, who after a satisfying run in more mainstream topics, decides at age 40 to turn their attention to "helping humanity" -- only in the form of FAI research rather than environmentalism.
(Also, if you b...
That would be difficult, since "groundbreaking work" automatically implies "extreme outlier".
In fact, I would expect that typical mathematicians are much more useful above 30 than below -- to a greater extent than is the case for the extreme outliers.
Simonton (1988) Age and Outstanding Achievement: What Do We Know After a Century of Research? Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 104, No. 2, 251-267.
Short version: the productivity for mathematicians seems to peak around late 20s or early 30s, with the productivity after the peak falling to less than one-quarter the maximum. However, the average quality of a contribution does not seem to vary with age, and exceptional researchers (in any field) tend to remain unusually profilic, as compared to an average researcher of the same age, even after passing their peaks.
Long version:
...In the first place, the location of the peak, as well as the magnitude of the postpeak decline, tends to vary depending on the domain of creative achievement. At one extreme, some fields are characterized by relatively early peaks, usually around the early 30s or even late 20s in chronological units, with somewhat steep descents thereafter, so that the output rate becomes less than one-quarter the maximum. This agewise pattern apparently holds for such endeavors as lyric poetry, pure mathematics, and theoretical physics, for example (Adams, 1946; Dennis, 1966; Lehman, 1953a; Moulin, 1955; Roe, 1972b; Simonton, 1975
...and after posting that comment, I remembered that I had made an earlier post citing studies that said that it's the middle-aged and not young scientists who are the most productive, which is in conflict with the results I just quoted. I feel silly now. I guess I should re-read the studies that I referenced three years ago to figure out what version is correct.
Anything for undergrads? It might be feasible to do a camp at the undergraduate level. Long term, doing an REU style program might be worth considering. NSF grants are available to non-profits and it may be worth at least looking into how SIAI might get a program funded. This would likely require some research, someone who is knowledgeable about grant writing and possibly some academic contacts. Other than that I'm not sure.
In addition, it might be beneficial to identify skill sets that are likely to be useful for SI research for the benefit of those who might be interested. What skills/specialized knowledge could SI use more of?
Run SPARC, a summer program on rationality for high school students with exceptional math ability. Cost: roughly $30,000.
Do we have any reason to believe that such a program will be more effective than existing summer programs like Ross and PROMYS?
SPARC and a number of mostly homogeneous math camps are all looking for pre-college students with strong mathematical ability. Since SPARC's syllabus is notably different from that of math camps, it seems like a bad idea to compete with these camps for the top students. But competition is inevitable if SPARC runs at the same time as these camps; below I have found and listed the 2012 start and end dates for the most prominent math camps:
SPARC's starting date this year conflicts with the end dates of three of these seven camps. Perhaps there are other scheduling constraints, but if not, wouldn't it be a good idea to run SPARC a week later to avoid conflicts? (It is too late to change this year, of course.)
*I know RSI is not a math camp in the spirit of the others, but it's well-known and attracts some students away from math camps.
ETA: And since SPARC is free and relevant to math students, if it can guarantee that it will not conflict with the other program dates, I think...
You guys should have a simple mailing list to sign up for to get reminded about future camps, and maybe even to broadcast camp related materials (e.g. "here are video lectures from the camp you missed").
Intelligence seems relatively static, but AFAIK once you've reached a certain minimum threshold in intelligence, conscientiousness becomes a more important factor for actual accomplishment. (Anecdotally and intuitively, conscientiousness seems more amenable to change, but I don't know if the psychological evidence supports that.)
Another point: I seem to recall a joke among mathematicians that if only it was announced that some famous problem was solved, without there actually being a solution, someone would try to find the solution for themselves and succeed in finding a valid solution.
In other words, how problems are framed may be important, and framing a problem as potentially impossible may make it difficult for folks to solve it.
Additionally, I see little evidence that the problems required for FAI are actually hard problems. This isn't to say that it's not a major research endeavor, which it may or may not be. All I'm saying is I don't see top academics having hammered at problems involved in building a FAI the same way they've hammered at, say, proving the Riemann hypothesis.
EY thinking they are super hard doesn't seem like much evidence to me; he's primarily known as a figure in the transhumanist movement and for popular writings on rationality, not for solving research problems. It's not even clear how much time he's spent thinking about the problems in between all of the other stuff he does.
FAI might just require lots of legwork on problems that are relatively straightforward to solve, really.
Series: How to Purchase AI Risk Reduction
Here is yet another way to purchase AI risk reduction...
Much of the work needed for Friendly AI and improved algorithmic decision theories requires researchers to invent new math. That's why the Singularity Institute's recruiting efforts have been aimed a talent in math and computer science. Specifically, we're looking for young talent in math and compsci, because young talent is (1) more open to considering radical ideas like AI risk, (2) not yet entrenched in careers and status games, and (3) better at inventing new math (due to cognitive decline with age).
So how can the Singularity Institute reach out to young math/compsci talent? Perhaps surprisingly, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is one of the best tools we have for this. It is read by a surprisingly large proportion of people in math and CS departments. Here are some other projects we have in the works:
Here are some things we could be doing if we had sufficient funding: