Luke Muehlhauser

Luke Muehlhauser is a blogger. He is a researcher at charity directory GiveWell. He was, until May 2015, the executive director of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (formerly the Singularity Institute), the organisation behind LessWrong. Meuehlhauser was raised in a Christian fundamentalist family, but he now identifies as an atheist. He is also a singularitarian.

Muehlhauser used to run the now-defunct atheist blog "Common Sense Atheism." He joined the Singularity Institute in 2011 as a researcher, and soon after was appointed Executive Director. His leadership is said to have helped the institute get its shit together after ten years' floundering.



Desire utilitarianism
Before moving into singularitarianism, Muehlhauser was an ardent proponent of Alonzo Fyfe's moral theory of desire utilitarianism. Eventually he came across Eliezer Yudkowsky, who became his new Jesus, while Fyfe was relegated to the role of John the Baptist. He posted an extensive reading series of Yudkowsky on his blog, which pretty much bored his audience to death.

Friendly AI
A machine superintelligence would be enormously powerful. Successful implementation of Friendly AI could mean the difference between a solar system of unprecedented happiness and a solar system in which all available matter has been converted into parts for achieving the superintelligence’s goals. Muehlhauser is concerned that when artificial intelligence becomes more intelligent than human beings, it could be harmful to us. Because of these fears, one of his ongoing projects is the development of what he calls "friendly AI."