All of AllisonDuettmann's Comments + Replies

That’s an interesting question and I would love to know more about what key point you think it’s missing.

I’m the meantime, here’s two things I’d say:

• I do wonder how much the existing heavy focus on specific risks and worst case scenarios may end up steering us those ways. Christine Peterson recently gave the steering car analogy,  i.e. that you’re not supposed to stop your car on the side of the highway because drivers automatically steer into it by looking at it. Positive directions to make progress toward can have the benefit of enticing more cooper

Here are a few across different Foresight focus areas:
 

Biotech:

• Xenobots: small self-healing biological machines created from frog cells that can move around, push a payload, retain memory, self-heal, and exhibit collective behavior in the presence of a swarm of other Xenobots. I would also love to see more work on the general potential of bioelectricity for human longevity. See Michael Levin’s Foresight seminar: https://foresight.org/summary/bioelectric-networks-taming-the-collective-intelligence-of-cells-for-regenerative-medicine
• Cryonics & nanome

In a few previous comments here, I point out how we integrate ML as a major driver of progress in our areas, e.g. such as molecular machines simulation tools, and how it affects our focus with respect to whole brain emulations. I give a longer review of how computing and AI progress affects each of our technical domains in this Breakthroughs in Computing Series by Protocol Labs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBvkFZycXRQ

With respect to Foresight’s role in safe AI progress, I think Foresight’s comparative advantage lies in bringing computer security inspir... (read more)

Foresight Institute was established in 1986 on the ideas discussed in Engines of Creation, Drexler, published by Eric Drexler, co-founder of Foresight. The book lays out a network of technologies that have the potential to significantly enhance the human condition, including nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science, which are interconnected with other important technologies like robotics and space exploration in complex ways. 

Given the broad technology stack Engines considered, the book, and Foresight, became an ear... (read more)

I think Foresight's value comes from a larger list of projects each of which has a small chance at creating a large impact. This comes mostly from the fact that we focus on advancing the beneficial use of a variety of undervalued technologies, including nano, bio, neuro, computing, and space, whose trajectory is harder to predict. We do this through early ecosystem development in these areas, that usually includes tools like our fellowships, prizes, workshops, and virtual seminars. Given that different technologies impact  Given that many of the techn... (read more)

Given that our main effort is to kindle beneficial innovation in undervalued technical domains of importance for the long-term future, such decisions are sometimes hard to trace but are mostly in the area of founding and funding such projects. 

Through Foresight matchmaking, members have started companies (such as a carbon drawdown company co-founded by a Foresight Fellow who met their co-founder at a Foresight event and recently raised $30M in follow-on funding), new research projects (such as a major research project building LLM-enabled preference s... (read more)

I think this is a question that is better directed at Eric himself :) I can confirm that he was one of Foresight’s co-founders, and that he did present at a few more Foresight recent events, such as the Decentralized AI workshop (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pClSjljMKeA, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNDD-ZbEsJA) and a Molecular Machines workshop (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjgjtAk-lws&t=1s).

I can also definitely say that our community remains excited about his outstanding work, such as Comprehensive AI Services, the Open Agency Architecture, Paretotopian Goal Alignment, and Molecular Nanotechnology.

Hi Sam, here are two previews of projects we're working on but which aren't published yet.

1. AI-assisted tech trees enabled by Discourse graphs

Throughout 2022, we have been building technology trees to map our five interest areas; molecular nanotechnology, longevity biotechnology, neurotechnology, secure human AI interaction, and space. The goal is to help onboard new talent and funders into the fields by sketching out which required capabilities are required for the long-term goals of the field, who is working on them, and which open challenges are left to b... (read more)