$295 bounty for new Singularity Institute logo design (crowd-sourced competition)

The 99designs page says it's a "bronze logo design package purchased for $295 (including 99designs fees)". However, searching that page and 99designs' site, I can't find the actual prize amount or 99designs' fee structure listed anywhere, so I assume that the $95 discrepancy is their cut. This seems rather dishonest on 99designs' part - it's quite reasonable for someone seeing that page to think that $295 was the actual amount of the prize.

The SIAI is not trying to make it seem cheaper to themselves.

I for one would get some utility from any further information about what sorts of designs were rejected and why. I've been working on SI logos for much of the last two days, but have no way to guess if I'm on the right track (other than that I like them, of course).

I'm working on a lengthy essay discussing this. It may not be relevant anymore by the time it's done, and might not really be appropriate for less wrong outside of replying to this specific post. But the basic summary is:

• Yes, for the immediate future, a contest with a $300 prize is probably going to be more useful to you than trying to hire an artist for $300.

• What you have to realize is that when you have a $300 contest with 20 participants, the actual financial payoff to the participants is essentially $15. The amount of time it takes to make a good logo is variable, depending on whether you get a flash of insight and do the whole thing in 15 minutes or take several hours trying various ideas. But essentially, on average, you are paying less than minimum wage for highly skilled labor. Doing a good job requires not only years of work, but studying design and branding principles that usually require a college education to understand and put into practice.

I don't actually know whether it's in your (or any other client's) long term interest to do this. We're dealing with a complex system here with a lot of potential long term side effects. People respond to contests irrationally, and it's entirely possible that they will continue to do so indefinitely and the payoff will always be worthwhile. But at least keep in the back of your head that what you're actually paying is a few dollars an hour, and the success you get is dependent (at best) on young hobbyists who are happy to do the work anyway, and (at worst) widespread irrationality and poor math skills among the general population.

(Note: I'm specifically talking about contest-labor. There are other forms of crowd-sourcing that I'm less concerned about.)

• Assigning $300 to your logo budget might be insufficient, period. I don't know enough about SIAI's marketing history to really judge one way or the other. The website design looks pretty solid. But I've seen several clients approach marketing in a piecemeal way that a) isn't efficient, b) misunderstands marketing as a whole. And whenever I see an advertisement for contest labor I'm reminded of a few related ways that clients approach art badly. This issue is the part that's most relevant for SIAI's consideration, but also the most complicated and I need to do more research before I'm confident enough of my assertions.

In the meantime, I'm also reminded of this discussion item about branding biodiversity. The philosophy behind that is definitely relevant here.

I think your points are good ones. I would note though, that:

Even if it's for charity, presumably a professional artist who can command higher fees does better to spend their time on better-paying contracts and donating the money instead of donating their time.

isn't necessarily true when the thing they are donating is their professional work. The reason it's better to hire a good professional is that the professional is going to understand things about design and communication better than the person trying to get the logo designed, including things like how to craft an overarching brand that sends a unified message rather than a single cool looking logo.

I realize it's hard to tell how good a professional is though, and I don't have any advice on that.

I don't know very many people who ring up grocery purchases or manage corporations or law firms as a hobby,

Not a "law firm" exactly, but the prosecutor's office in Long Beach, California is looking for volunteers to prosecute criminals for free. This economy is rough.

It does suck that the internet means I have to compete with thousands (millions?) of people across the globe. And you're right, that's not the client's fault. New, cheaper technology makes it easier and easier to become an artist who can at least put together something decent. But I recognize that that's just the economic reality.

The reason I'm so vocally opposed to contest-labor, and why I think artists should show solidarity whenever possible against it, is that it's dishonest. Yes, technically all the rules are there in writing. But people see a payment tag of $300 on 99artists and think it means a payment of $300, when what it really means is about $10 (if you know you're genuinely in the top bracket of talent, maybe it's closer to $25. Dunno). Even if you know that it technically means $10, you have to constantly remind yourself of it. And that's a wage that you seriously cannot live off. We may not be able to unionize to keep wages at $25/hour, but we should at least be able to unionize to prevent wages from becoming $.50/hour. Sites like Scriptlance, on the other hand, might drive rates down to $100 for a logo. But at least $100 actually means $100. I'm fine with that.

It's been a while since I emphasized this point, so it's worth repeating: I'm not actually opposed to SIAI doing this. When you're donating time to charity, you're not trying to make a living, you're just donating time. That's fine. But because it also reinforces the image of contest-labor = reasonable, and because this is a blog that is specifically dedicated to helping people make more rational decisions about economic utility, I think it's important to emphasize that this is not a legitimate way for artists to earn money.

Institute for AI Ethics strikes me as the clearest of the bunch.

Would The Institute for AI Friendliness come off as too weird?

Right now you have to take the Singularity hurdle before you can start talking about risks from AI seriously.

That's definitely true, but it would be dishonest if SIAI wasn't up front about its views on the Singularity.

Center for Machine Ethics (or Institute for...)

Institute for Reducing Existential Risk

Center for the Reduction of Existential Risk

"Machine ethics" is, as far as I can tell, the actual name in the literature (insofar as there is any). I also really like how it sounds. The general "Reducing existential risk" angle probably requires the organization to get broader in it's focus and focus on other risks (or else be seen as deceptive). But that might not be a bad thing and it may be the way to getting a lot more money and being seen as a mainstream charity.

Also I'm not sure how sold I am on "Institute" it's got a 'we're pretending we're associated with academia' feel to it. I think "Center for..." sounds a lot better.

I like institute of formal ethics.

I like "Formal Ethics" or "AI Ethics". Including "Friendliness" in the name would probably be a mistake.

I was thinking something like "the Optimization Institute", or something else with the word "optimization" — since it's relevant to their research (and distinguishes their focus on precisely-understood optimization algorithms from other AGI projects that focus on often-nebulous and often-anthropomorphic views of intelligence), and doesn't have significant preexisting connotations, while still hopefully sounding a bit intriguing to people who haven't heard of it before.

Are the relevant powers not at all interested in a name change?

Am I the only one who finds it surreal how poorly rumors about the Singularity Institute correspond to reality?

I find it entirely predictable. The SI does not seem to be comprised of PR wizards, and communication is hard.

What rumors are you talking about? The name change, or "Skynet or Terminators or HAL or the Matrix" or some other thing? (Edited to remove erroneous quote)

I still haven't figured out which one it is. Updating my assessment of my ability to see the obvious.

Hmm. I hope SI isn't somehow obligated to use one of the designs submitted, if none of them are good enough, or if, as you suggest, there is a best design which could be improved. Presumably the winning designer could be asked to do further work; but what about e.g. SI hiring an artist to improve the winning design?

Also, good point about the 'the'. I'd better make a 'The Singularity Institute' logo too, just in case. (The closest thing to a logo they have on their website now has a 'the'.)

Maybe just knowing there is such an image will help me think of it. Or maybe it will inspire me to attempt to duplicate your exploit.

Hmm. It had been a long time since I read that. I forgot that EY specifically compares the Vinge singularity to an event horizon. It's an apt comparison, although the event horizon is not a singularity (well, it's a co-ordinate singularity in some co-ordinate systems, but that doesn't count*). I took a quick look on the internet to see if I could find Vinge actually making that connection, but I didn't see it. The 1993 document, for example, doesn't refer to space-time or black holes at all (but it did remind me that, contra Wikipedia [and me above (ETA: actually I didn't make the erroneous claim, but I think I believed it)], Von Neumann deserves at least part of the credit for being first to say 'singularity', since Ulam was paraphrasing him).

There is possibly a tension here between those who instinctively perceive the word 'singularity' as a mathematical term and those who perceive it as a (speculative) historical one. Many of us, presumably, can go either way depending on the context, treating the two things basically as [the referents of] homonyms. But with my bromide immortalized in that image, I was attempting to point out what they all have in common: they are by their very nature holes in a structure, not elements of a structure. When the structure in question is a map, they are points where the map fails. When the structure in question is the object of investigation, as it is in mathematics, they are merely discontinuities; but they are not things, they do not exist. For me, the very word 'singularity' connotes the tenuousness of our maps.

Of course, it is also important to make a literal/figurative distinction here. Singularities in math and physical theories are literal singularities; historical ones are figurative. And some are more figurative than others; as I'm sure has been pointed out, Kurzweil's singularity is pretty hard to see in any kind of superexponential growth curve, but perhaps running into a vertical asymptote can be charitably interpreted as hyperbolic.

* That's actually a good example of what I mean, though. Co-ordinate singularities are in some maps but not others (that we know how to make); 'real' singularities (the word is here quoted for bogosity) are in every map we know how to make.