Mission

Some companies are sincere when they announce they are pursuing superintelligence, despite acknowledging the risks that this will lead to the extinction of humanity. Things are moving fast; many people struggle to keep up with the frantic pace of progress and to understand where it is leading…

Therefore, the developing AI situation needs to be made legible/accessible/understandable to outsiders in order for society to walk a potentially quite narrow path towards a good future. Istarion Research believes that experts have a responsibility here, and we would seek to encourage, facilitate, and enable them in fulfilling it. In addition to making legible what experts conclude, we seek to make non-experts understand some key things that experts understand, by turning both specific research products and general understanding of important issues (currently scattered or not yet existing) into improved sense-making among the broader academic community, policy community, and the general public. Here is a list of activities of this kind we would pursue:

Make disparate information and consensus among experts visible and legible, perhaps using some executive summaries, illustrations, interactive websites, podcast-style discussions, long-form blogs, etc.
Engage with the broader academic community, policy community, and the general public, address the actual objections people have, and produce compelling content informed by this engagement.
Remain grounded and focused on meaningful questions by having lots of conversations with lots of stakeholders and guide the long-term investigations of the institute to bring sense and clarity to such discussions.
Understand and publicly address the actual intuitions and reasons people have for what they believe and do.

Many questions need to be asked. There is currently nothing remotely approaching a consensus on a technical pathway that would lead to a safe superintelligence (or to a good future). If funding permits, we would also want to perform fundamental research into the underlying assumptions behind various proposed technical pathways and turn the research products into improved sense-making among the experts, broader academic community, policy community, and the general public.

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The Istarion Research Project is fiscally sponsored by Ashgro Inc.