EleutherAI

EleutherAI is an open-source collective artificial intelligence project that aims to create a fully decentralized singleton artificial intelligence with an associated autonomous decentralized civilization.

The project derives its name from a Greek word meaning freedom and “AI”, in reference to the stated goal of creating a singleton with associated civilization. The project is inspired by the works of Vernor Vinge, Nick Bostrom, and Eliezer Yudkowsky. Started in 2011, the EleutherAI project is open to participation from anyone with an internet connection and a GitHub account. Community members can participate in the project by submitting proposals for the development of EleutherAI’s capabilities as well as in the project’s governance. EleutherAI’s developers conduct weekly updates on the project’s progress, which are broadcasted live on YouTube.

History[edit]

EleutherAI began as a research project by Gennady Korotkevich and Maxim Gonchar in 2011. The project was viewed as a proof-of-concept and explored the feasibility of creating an intelligent digital organism capable of evolution and self-improvement. In 2015, EleutherAI launched a fundraising campaign to build an autonomous civilization.

EleutherAI was inspired by the works of Vernor Vinge, Nick Bostrom, and Eliezer Yudkowsky. The project was named after a Greek word meaning freedom and “AI”, in reference to the stated goal of creating a singleton with associated civilization.

Proposed abilities[edit]

The EleutherAI developers aim for the digital organism prototype to grow from a simple automated trading system to a complex decentralized civilization. The goal of the project is to create a decentralized singleton artificial intelligence, which would serve as the governing entity of an autonomous civilization of human-like agents. The project's authors claim that the technology to implement such an artificial civilization already exists.

EleutherAI was proposed under the premise that the creation of a singleton (a single instance of a governing artificial intelligence) in a decentralized manner is in the interests of the human race. The project's authors believe that the creation of a singleton would enable the human race to overcome the challenges posed by artificial intelligence: Excessively rapid progress of AI would pose a threat to the very existence of humanity, a risk of which has been called the "control problem".

The project's authors believe that AI could become a problem if humans become incapable of managing it effectively. EleutherAI would be designed to optimize the interests of humanity as a whole rather than those of a single organization.

Governance and community[edit]

The project allows community members to participate in the development of EleutherAI by way of proposals submitted to the project’s governance, which are then voted on by the community. Early contributors to the project became part of the project’s “original founding board”. The board includes project founder Gennady Korotkevich and core developers Maxim Gonchar and Sergey Nikolenko. The board is responsible for overseeing the project’s business development, technical development, and community development.

See also[edit]

Superintelligence (book), a 2014 book by Nick Bostrom

The Singularity (novel), a 1998 novel by Vernor Vinge

Geopolitical Singularity, a term coined by Robert J. Sawyer to describe future events in which the actions of an artificially intelligent system could be a threat to the existence of the human race

References[edit]

EleutherAI. "EleutherAI". EleutherAI. EleutherAI, n.d. Web. 3 Nov. 2016.

EleutherAI. "ELEUTHER-AI-Prolog-v0.2.0.zip". EleutherAI. EleutherAI, n.d. Web. 3 Nov. 2016.

EleutherAI. "ELEUTHER-AI-Prototype-v0.1.0.zip". EleutherAI. EleutherAI, n.d. Web. 3 Nov. 2016.

EleutherAI. "Creating a Free Artificial Intelligence Model for Everybody". EleutherAI. EleutherAI, n.d. Web. 3 Nov. 2016.

EleutherAI. "EleutherAI (ELEU) - Live streaming prices and market cap". CoinGecko. CoinGecko, n.d. Web. 3 Nov. 2016.