What is MIRI currently doing?
By Roko @ 2024-12-14T02:55 (+9)
As of EoY 2022, MIRI has 11 people on payroll, assets of about $20M and a lot of mindshare. Its mission is stated as follows on the most recent tax filing I can find:
"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. "
The website lists a workshop from 2018 and some papers from 2015. There are also some papers from 2020-2021.
What is MIRI currently (or at least over the past 12 months) doing to fulfill these goals? (This is not intended to be a hostile question, just as a matter of fact what are MIRI doing/what have they done over the past 12 months)
(Crossposted from Less Wrong)
Harlan @ 2024-12-17T01:08 (+7)
Hi, I'm part of the communications team at MIRI. Here's a very high-level summary of what MIRI is currently doing:
- Our research portfolio includes the new Technical Governance Team, as well as some alignment research (though much less than before).
- We have also spun up a comms team. We think of our comms work in terms of "rock content" and "wave content." Currently more effort is going into "rock content" projects which will be announced later.
- We also do some work in DC, though this is limited by our status as a 501(c)(3).
MIRI's strategy update from earlier this year explains the reasoning behind our shift from primarily doing technical alignment research to focusing more on communications and policy. The actual work of making that shift is a lot of why 2024 looked quieter, from the outside, than 2023 (and than our hopes for 2025).
Davidmanheim @ 2024-12-14T19:52 (+6)
There's a new post or two discussing this: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GdBwsYWGytXrkniSy/miri-s-june-2024-newsletter https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cqF9dDTmWAxcAEfgf/communications-in-hard-mode-my-new-job-at-miri
And a older one from last year: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NjtHt55nFbw3gehzY/announcing-miri-s-new-ceo-and-leadership-team