Contents
FLI March, 2016 Newsletter
The first two months of 2016 were full of news, activities, conferences, talks, and more…
The first two months of 2016 were full of news, activities, conferences, talks, and more…
The Growing Risk of Nuclear Weapons
AAAI: Featuring FLI Grantees at the AI Safety Workshop
The AAAI conference was held in Phoenix, AZ this February, and FLI was honored to help organize and participate in the AI, Ethics, and Safety Workshop. The afternoon session featured talks by many of the recipients of the FLI AI safety grants that were awarded in July of last year, and it also included a panel discussion about what types of research projects should be considered next. The conference officially kicked off with a speech by President Tom Dietterich about the importance of robust AI research. Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig received the Outstanding Educator Award. And Nick Bostrom gave a plenary talk about the importance of AI safety and the future of AI. He and FLI advisor Erik Brynjolfsson also participated in a panel discussion about the impacts of AI on jobs.
The Future of AI
In January, Yann LeCun hosted a symposium about what the future of artificial intelligence will look like. FLI’s Max Tegmark spoke at the symposium, along with leaders in the tech industry and AI research community, including Eric Schmidt of Alphabet, Demis Hassabis of Deep Mind, Eric Horvitz of Microsoft, Jen-Hsun Huang of NVIDIA, and many others. While the discussion was mostly optimistic, much of it also focused on keeping AI safe and beneficial, which is a testament to just how far we’ve come since FLI hosted its Puerto Rico conference last January.
AlphaGo
Metaculus
Predicting the future (of life): FLI co-founder, Anthony Aguirre, recently launched an exciting, online predictive tool, Metaculus. Metaculus is a great place to ask questions about the future and make your own predictive analysis. Not sure where to start? Have a go with the AlphaGo predictions for the upcoming games!
Intro to AI Safety
Good AI safety resources can get lost among the ever growing sea of new AI research and news articles that may or may not be well informed. FLI co-founder, Victoria Krakovna, put together an excellent starter list of resources to help people new to AI safety understand what the issues and research are about.
Who’s to Blame?
Is the Legal World Ready for AI?
The Legal Vacuum Surrounding Autonomous Weapons
What Is an “Autonomous” Weapon?
Could Autonomous Weapons Systems Navigate the Law of Armed Conflict?
Who’s to Blame if an Autonomous Weapon Breaks the Law?
News of the Week
Human Embryo Gene Editing
Nuclear Winter and a Government Risk Report
AAAI, Beneficial AI Research, a $5M Contest, and Nuclear Risks
Ocean Warming and Nuclear Protests
CRISPR
CRISPR is THE big news in the biotechnology field these days, from gene drives to wipe out mosquitos to patent battles to editing human embryos, CRISPR is in headline after headline. We highlighted the most exciting CRISPR developments of the last few months to bring you up to speed.