Machines Like Us – Science News

What are the major challenges to achieving advanced AI? What are the benefits and dangers? How far are we from self-improving AI? How should we prepare for this potentially powerful innovation? These are among the questions that 17 outstanding thinkers will explore and debate at the Singularity Summit, to be held Saturday and Sunday, September 8-9, at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, California. The summit is organized by the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit institute in Silicon Valley for the study of safe advanced AI.

"Advanced AI has the potential to impact every aspect of human life. We are in a crucial window of opportunity where we have temporary but powerful leverage to influence the outcome," said Tyler Emerson, chair of the summit and executive director of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. "Only a small group of scientists are aware of the central issues. It is essential to expand discussion of this critical 21st century issue, which is why I have created the summit."

Peter Thiel, PayPal Cofounder, Clarium Capital President, and Facebook's initial investor, will MC the summit and present his new ideas on financial markets and the Singularity. "It's clear that the term 'AI' means a lot of different things," said Thiel. "It's one of these terms that has been bandied about a great deal, and has been misused a lot. It has been predicted for a long time that AI is right around the corner, and it's taking longer than many people thought it would, with many disappointments along the way. However, it's clear that there's a massive set of issues happening, and people who don't think there's something important going on are living in a fantasy, and need to wake up."

Tickets can be purchased online for $50 at http://www.singinst.org/summit2007/tickets/ .