About Us

We research the future of progressively intelligent computing and its disruptive effects on economy and society.
Our reports inform policy makers and the public on disruptive computing technology and on effective methods of managing its risks.

Our Charter

AI Risks

IS ARTIFICIAL SUPERINTELLIGENCE LIKELY?
DO GPT/AlphaZero REPRESENT TRUE BREAKTHROUGHS TOWARDS AGI?
ARE THERE ANY SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEMS OF AI ALLIGNMENT OR BOXING?
WHAT IS THE LIKELIHOOD OF HUMAN-LEVEL AI BY 2042?
IS IT DANGEROUS? — HOW CAN AN AI ARMS RACE BE AVOIDED?

Finance: Disrupted

WILL CRYPTOCOINS REPLACE TRADITIONAL CURRENCIES? — HOW WILL AI DISRUPT ALGOTRADING? — HOW ARE ULTRAFAST EXTREME EVENTS CHANGING STOCK TRADING? — HOW LIKELY ARE FURTHER FLASH CRASHES? — HOW WILL BLOCKCHAIN TECH AFFECT FINANCIAL SERVICES? — HOW MUCH WILL GROWTH IN ROBOTICS DISRUPT THE ECONOMY?

Employment: Disrupted

WILL AI INCREASE OR REDUCE UNEMPLOYMENT? — OXFORD MARTIN SCHOOL: “47% OF THE TOTAL US EMPLOYMENT IS AT RISK” — DELOITTE: “AUTOMATION WILL CUT 39% OF JOBS IN THE LEGAL SECTOR IN THE NEXT 2 DECADES”

Autonomous Killer Robots

WILL AUTONOMOUS LETHAL ROBOTS INCREASE OR REDUCE CASUALTIES? — HOW WILL INTERNATIONAL LAW DEAL WITH KILLER ROBOTS? — WHO SHOULD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR WAR CRIMES COMMITTED BY KILLER ROBOTS? — THE CENTER FOR A NEW AMERICAN SECURITY: “INCREASED AUTONOMY IN THE USE OF FORCE RAISES THE DANGEROUS SPECTER OF ‘FLASH WARS’ INITIATED BY AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS INTERACTING ON THE BATTLEFIELD IN WAYS THAT MAY BE UNPREDICTABLE.”

Cyberwarfare

IN OPERATION ORCHARD, ISRAELI FIGHTER JETS BOMBED A SYRIAN NUCLEAR REACTOR WITHOUT ANY RESISTANCE. THE REASON: MALICIOUS SOFTWARE BLINDED THE DEFENCE SYSTEMS BY DISPLAYING FALSE TARGETS. — WILL AN UNINTENTIONAL ESCALATION LEAD TO FULL-BLOWN CYBER WAR? — HOW CAN SUCH ESCALATION BE PREVENTED? — HOW THE LAW OF STATE RESPONSIBILITY APPLIES TO THE USE OF PROXIES IN CYBER OPERATIONS? — TALINN MANUAL: “EXISTING LEGAL INTERPRETATIONS LEAVES STATE BEHAVIOUR IN CYBERSPACE SUSCEPTIBLE TO BOTH OVER- AND UNDERREACTION IN THE EVENT OF CYBER CONFLICT”

Board

Vic Callaghan
Emeritus professor of computer science, University of Essex; president, AAIE; Director, Creative Science Foundation

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Vic Callaghan
Emeritus professor of computer science, University of Essex; president, AAIE; Director, Creative Science Foundation

Victor Callaghan is an emeritus professor of computer science at Essex University, deputy director of the Digital Lifestyles Centre, member of the Intelligent Environments Group, and the director of the Creative Science Foundation and President of the Association for the Advancement of Intelligent Environments. Vic is a founder of the international annual IEEE sponsored conference Intelligent Environments. He has authored over 300 papers in international journals, conferences and books plus and acted as principal investigator on numerous international research projects attracting over 6 million pounds in funding. Vic lectured in Electronics at Sheffield University and University College Cardiff before becoming a lecturer in Computer Science at Essex University, where he used his expertise in working across the intersection of electronics and software to establish two world leading research groups: the Essex University mobile robotics group and the Intelligent Environments group. Vic’s contributions include a methodology to determine the real-time dynamic complexity of embedded software; the first application of microprocessors to social science research; a novel real-time self-programming algorithm for robot control, the world’s first network camera, a novel immerse education desk derived from Science Fiction Prototyping he helped pioneer with Intel, and facilitating the first town in Europe on the World-Wide-Web. Vic’s BEng studies at Sheffield University were financed by the A&AEE establishment, and his PhD in Software Engineering was funded by an Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC).

B. Jack Copeland
Professor of Philosophy, University of Canterbury; Director, Turing Archive

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B. Jack Copeland
Professor of Philosophy, University of Canterbury; Director, Turing Archive

Jack Copeland FRS NZ is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, where he is Director of the Turing Archive for the History of Computing. He is also Honorary Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Queensland, Australia, and in 2012 was Royden B. Davis Visiting Chair of Interdisciplinary Studies in the Department of Psychology at Georgetown University, Washington DC. His books include The Essential Turing (Oxford University Press), Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park’s Codebreaking Computers (Oxford University Press), Alan Turing’s Electronic Brain (Oxford University Press), Computability: Turing, Gödel, Church, and Beyond (MIT Press), Logic and Reality (Oxford University Press), and Artificial Intelligence (Blackwell); and he has published more than 100 articles on the philosophy and history of computing, and mathematical and philosophical logic. Jack is recognised as a leading authority on Turing’s work, and in June of 2004, the 50th anniversary of Turing’s death, he delivered the first annual Turing Memorial Lecture at Bletchley Park National Museum and lectured on Turing’s life and work at the Royal Institution of London. Jack received the Scientific American Sci/Tech Web Award for his on-line archive www.AlanTuring.net. A Londoner by birth, Jack earned a B.Phil. with Distinction from the University of Oxford followed by a D.Phil. in mathematical logic, taught by Turing’s student and friend Robin Gandy. Jack has been a visiting scholar at the University of California at Los Angeles, a visiting professor at the universities of Sydney, Aarhus, Melbourne, and Portsmouth, and a senior fellow of the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a past president of the U.S.-based Society for Machines and Mentality and is the founding editor of the Rutherford Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology.

Amnon H. Eden
Principal Scientist, Sapience.org; Founder, Moneta Sapiens

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Amnon H. Eden
Principal Scientist, Sapience.org; Founder, Moneta Sapiens

Amnon H. Eden is the Principal Scientist of Sapience.org, author of “Codecharts: Roadmaps and Blueprints of Object-Oriented Programs”, editor of “Singularity Hypotheses: A Scientific and Philosophical Analysis, formerly lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Essex Amnon received a Master in Computer Science (Machine Learning; Cum Laude) and a Doctorate in Computer Science (Software Engineering) from Tel Aviv University. He’s held posts in Israel Institute of Technology–Technion, Tel Aviv University, Uppsala University, and Concordia University; fellowships at the Center For Inquiry and the Institute of Advanced Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; and served as the director of undergraduate studies at the University of Essex. Amnon’s work is concerned with the application of disruptive technologies and original thought to interdisciplinary questions in the theory and practice of software design and artificial intelligence. His original work on design pattern formalization and software modelling appeared three of the highest ranking outlets in Google Scholar’s Top Publications–Software Systems. He co-authored the first entry on the Philosophy of Computer Science in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

James H. Moor
Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy, Dartmouth College

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James H. Moor
Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy, Dartmouth College

James H. Moor (Jim) is the Daniel P. Stone Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy at Dartmouth College. Jim chaired the Philosophy Department in Dartmouth College and the American Philosophical Association Committee on Philosophy and Computers. Jim was President of Society for Machines and Mentality, President of Northern New England Philosophical Association, the editor-in-chief of Minds and Machines (a peer-reviewed academic journal), and a Member of National Academies Committee sponsored by DARPA. In 2003 Jim was awarded SIGCAS Making a Difference Award and in 2006 the Barwise Prize. Jim earned his Ph.D. in 1972 from Indiana University. Moor’s 1985 paper entitled “What is Computer Ethics?” established him as one of the pioneering theoreticians in the field of computer ethics. Jim has written extensively on the Turing Test. Jim’s research includes study in philosophy of artificial intelligence, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and logic. Jim has published several books, including Cyberphilosophy: The Intersection of Computing and Philosophy (Oxford 2002), Nanoethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Nanotechnology (Wiley 2007), and The Logic Book (6th Edition, McGraw-Hill 2013), as well as the entry on Machine Intelligence in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2nd edition, McMillan 2013).

David Pearce
Philosopher; Owner, BLTC Research

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David Pearce
Philosopher; Owner, BLTC Research

David Pearce is a British philosopher, owner of BLTC Research, and a fellow with the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. David is known as the co-founder of the World Transhumanist Association (subsequently renamed to Humanity+) with fellow philosopher Nick Bostrom, a nonprofit organisation that advocates transhumanism: an international cultural and intellectual movement whose goal is to improve the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities. David’s work describes how genetic engineering, nanotechnology, pharmacology, and neurosurgery could potentially converge towards a bio-intelligence explosion: a transhumanist singularity. David’s philosophy has inspired a strain of transhumanism based on a strong ethical imperative for humans to work towards the abolition of suffering of all sentient life, ultimately for humanity’s own benefit (‘the hedonistic imperative’). David is a public speaker who’s given talks at the University of Oxford, Lund University, Harvard University, and Stanford University. His work has been covered by BBC Radio, Vanity Fair, The Daily Telegraph, The Economist, and H+ Magazine.

Steve Phelps
Lecturer in Computational Finance, Kings College London; Co-founder: Ripple Software Ltd, Victoria Ltd

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Steve Phelps
Lecturer in Computational Finance, Kings College London; Co-founder: Ripple Software Ltd, Victoria Ltd

Dr Steve Phelps is a Lecturer in Computational Finance at the Agents and Intelligent Systems group in Kings College London and the co-founder of Ripple Software Ltd., which developed econometric analysis tools for power-sellers, and of Victria Ltd, which delivered a prototype dark-pool trading platform. Steve research stems from the realization that the financial markets present a unique opportunity for studying complex-adaptive systems with the recent availability of high-frequency tick-data which records every transaction in the market, and can run to many billions of events per exchange per annum. His work uses agent-based modelling to understand real-world complex-adaptive systems which are composed of interacting autonomous agents, specifically questions which pervade the biological and social sciences, as well as many areas of engineering and computing. His key research question is how, and if, these systems maintain macroscopic homeostatic behaviour despite the fact that their constituent agents often face an incentive to disrupt the rest of the system for their own gain. Steve is also interested in developing methods for using these big data sets to systematically calibrate agent-based simulation models, in order to try and better understand the role of learning and adaptation in explaining some of the phenomena that are observed in empirical financial time-series data, which cannot be accounted-for by the classical theoretical models in this field. Steve has commercial experience of the electronic-commerce and financial sectors, having worked for a number of SMEs and Blue-chip companies.

Anders Sandberg
Senior Research Fellow, Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University.

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Anders Sandberg
Senior Research Fellow, Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University.

Anders Sandberg is a Swedish researcher, futurist and transhumanist. He holds a PhD in computational neuroscience from Stockholm University, and is currently a senior research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow at Reuben College. Sandberg’s research centres on societal and ethical issues surrounding human enhancement and new technology, as well as on assessing the capabilities and underlying science of future technologies. His research includes work on cognitive enhancement (methods, impacts, and policy analysis); a technical roadmap on whole brain emulation; on neuroethics; and on global catastrophic risks, particularly on the question of how to take into account the subjective uncertainty in risk estimates of low-likelihood, high-consequence risk.
Sandberg is a commentator and participant in the public debate about human enhancement, as well as for his academic publications in neuroscience, ethics, and future studies. He is co-founder of and writer for the think tank Eudoxa, and is a co-founder of the Orion’s Arm collaborative worldbuilding project. Between 1996 and 2000 he was Chairman of the Swedish Transhumanist Association. He was also the scientific producer for the neuroscience exhibition “Se Hjärnan!” (“Behold the Brain!”), organized by Swedish Travelling Exhibitions, the Swedish Research Council and the Knowledge Foundation, that toured Sweden in 2005–2006. In 2007 he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, working on the EU-funded ENHANCE project on the ethics of human enhancement.

Sample Publications

Reports

Our Team

Amnon H. Eden
Principal Scientist

Amnon H. Eden is the Principal Scientist of Sapience.org, author of “Codecharts: Roadmaps and Blueprints of Object-Oriented Programs”, editor of “Singularity Hypotheses: A Scientific and Philosophical Analysis, formerly lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Essex

Carolyn Seet
Director of Operations

Carolyn Seet (EMBA) is a highly competent, versatile finance and operations professional, with over 20 years’ experience with market leaders in London and Singapore. She is a strong builder of effective teams, with a powerful combination of creativity, strategic insight, problem-solving skills to optimise controls and processes.

Tony Willson
Co-Founder

Tony was a lawyer for 17 years, , and spent 10 years with the Dale Carnegie Organisation, instructing most of their programmes and managing Essex and East London. Tony has founded an award winning outsourcing business mainly aimed at the construction sector and providing training management, health and safety and e-Learning services. He also worked with a US company delivering high-level Negotiating training worldwide.

Contact Us

We want to hear from you!

Send your email to Carolyn Seet, director of operations at seet@sapience.org

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