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Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence

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  • Holden Karnofsky
    We ve had a fair number of requests to evaluate the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, which Vipul mentioned in a recent email. This
    Message 1 of 7 , Apr 30, 2011
      We've had a fair number of requests to evaluate the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, which Vipul mentioned in a recent email. This organization is pretty far outside the scope of what we normally look at, so we haven't done a formal review, but I did have a sit-down with representatives from this group in February, and have gotten their permission to publish a paraphrased transcript of our conversation. This document gives a good overview of my view on SIAI.

      In a nutshell, I have sympathy for SIAI's goals, but I do not believe that it currently has the (a) track record / credibility (b) room for more funding that it would have to in order to interest me in donating to it. There is one SIAI supporter/endorser I'm interested in speaking to to learn more (mentioned in the transcript). We're going to keep an eye on the group.

      Paraphrased transcript of my conversation with SIAI representatives: http://www.givewell.org/files/MiscCharities/SIAI/siai%202011%2002%20III.doc

    • Vipul Naik
      Dear Holden/GiveWell, Thanks a lot for this update. In the transcript, the SIAI people mention two people, Peter Thiel (also mentioned in my earlier email) and
      Message 2 of 7 , Apr 30, 2011
        Dear Holden/GiveWell,

        Thanks a lot for this update. In the transcript, the SIAI people
        mention two people, Peter Thiel (also mentioned in my earlier email)
        and Jaan Tallin. You say that you already know about Peter Thiel. Does
        this mean that you at GiveWell have already talked to him, or that you
        have read enough of his public writings/speeches that you think you
        have a fair idea of his reasons for supporting SIAI?

        If you have a record of a conversation that you have had with Peter
        Thiel (or somebody from his foundation) on these organizations, would
        it be possible for you to make it public?

        More generally, have you made public any of your records of
        conversations with foundations or other large-scale donors whom you've
        approached for information on the charities that they fund?

        Thanks, and keep up the good work!

        Vipul

        * Quoting Holden Karnofsky who at 2011-04-30 14:38:02+0000 (Sat) wrote
        > We've had a fair number of requests to evaluate the Singularity Institute
        > for Artificial Intelligence, which Vipul mentioned in a recent email. This
        > organization is pretty far outside the scope of what we normally look at, so
        > we haven't done a formal review, but I did have a sit-down with
        > representatives from this group in February, and have gotten their
        > permission to publish a paraphrased transcript of our conversation. This
        > document gives a good overview of my view on SIAI.
        >
        > In a nutshell, I have sympathy for SIAI's goals, but I do not believe that
        > it currently has the (a) track record / credibility (b) room for more
        > funding that it would have to in order to interest me in donating to it.
        > There is one SIAI supporter/endorser I'm interested in speaking to to learn
        > more (mentioned in the transcript). We're going to keep an eye on the group.
        >
        > Paraphrased transcript of my conversation with SIAI representatives:
        > http://www.givewell.org/files/MiscCharities/SIAI/siai%202011%2002%20III.doc
        >
        > SIAI website: http://www.singinst.org
      • Jonah Sinick
        Hi Vipul, While one may be able to gain some insight into the reasons for supporting a charity from talking to a large donors, I think that there s reason to
        Message 3 of 7 , May 1, 2011
          Hi Vipul,

          While one may be able to gain some insight into the reasons for supporting a charity from talking to a large donors, I think that there's reason to think that in a given instance the probability of getting a useful answer is fairly low. One data point in this direction the Gates Foundation's grant for Japan release and their answers to GiveWell's questions. I've formed a general impression that in many (most?) cases large donors do not carefully analyze charities with a view toward optimizing the positive impact of their donations.

          In the case of Peter Thiel I'll note that according the data available on Wikipedia
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Philanthropy
          it seems like his donations to the said organizations are in the range of $1 million per year which is in the neighborhood of 1% of his annual earnings. The fact that the amount that he donated to them was such a low percentage of such a high income suggests lack of seriousness of purpose. Moreover, the sorts of assumptions under which marginal donations to SIAI would be of comparable expected utility to marginal donations to the Seasteading Institute are very special assumptions which seem unlikely to hold - this suggests that Thiel may be funding at least one of them without a view toward maximizing expected utility.

          If you're interested in donating to one or more of organizations mentioned in the Breakthrough Philanthropy you might consider visiting them personally.  Each of SIAI, SENS and the Seasteading Institute is in the San Francisco bay area which is a place that one might end up visiting for any number of reasons. I visited SIAI last December and was received hospitably.

          Jonah



          On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 7:14 PM, Vipul Naik <vipul@...> wrote:
           

          Dear Holden/GiveWell,

          Thanks a lot for this update. In the transcript, the SIAI people
          mention two people, Peter Thiel (also mentioned in my earlier email)
          and Jaan Tallin. You say that you already know about Peter Thiel. Does
          this mean that you at GiveWell have already talked to him, or that you
          have read enough of his public writings/speeches that you think you
          have a fair idea of his reasons for supporting SIAI?

          If you have a record of a conversation that you have had with Peter
          Thiel (or somebody from his foundation) on these organizations, would
          it be possible for you to make it public?

          More generally, have you made public any of your records of
          conversations with foundations or other large-scale donors whom you've
          approached for information on the charities that they fund?

          Thanks, and keep up the good work!

          Vipul

          * Quoting Holden Karnofsky who at 2011-04-30 14:38:02+0000 (Sat) wrote


          > We've had a fair number of requests to evaluate the Singularity Institute
          > for Artificial Intelligence, which Vipul mentioned in a recent email. This
          > organization is pretty far outside the scope of what we normally look at, so
          > we haven't done a formal review, but I did have a sit-down with
          > representatives from this group in February, and have gotten their
          > permission to publish a paraphrased transcript of our conversation. This
          > document gives a good overview of my view on SIAI.
          >
          > In a nutshell, I have sympathy for SIAI's goals, but I do not believe that
          > it currently has the (a) track record / credibility (b) room for more
          > funding that it would have to in order to interest me in donating to it.
          > There is one SIAI supporter/endorser I'm interested in speaking to to learn
          > more (mentioned in the transcript). We're going to keep an eye on the group.
          >
          > Paraphrased transcript of my conversation with SIAI representatives:
          > http://www.givewell.org/files/MiscCharities/SIAI/siai%202011%2002%20III.doc
          >
          > SIAI website: http://www.singinst.org


        • Holden Karnofsky
          A few responses: - I ve never spoken to Peter Thiel. I ve not seen any public statement that clarifies his thinking on the issues I see as key. - I am not so
          Message 4 of 7 , May 3, 2011
            A few responses:
            • I've never spoken to Peter Thiel. I've not seen any public statement that clarifies his thinking on the issues I see as key.
            • I am not so sure that his giving a relatively small % of income indicates a lack of seriousness of purpose. The fact that he doesn't give more may come from issues related to (a) room for more funding; (b) checking one's own beliefs by asking that a project raise some money from elsewhere (his donation to SIAI is already a very large proportion of its total revenue).
            • To be clear, I don't believe in putting too much weight on any one person's opinion, especially when the reasoning behind that opinion is unclear. My interest in SIAI's endorsements has to do with a couple of possibilities: (a) a single endorser, such as Jaan Tallinn (more likely than Peter Thiel), might convince me of the merits of SIAI if they wrote something relevant or if we spoke; (b) the existence of a broad consensus of people who seem well-placed to understand certain technical issues could sway me even if I couldn't follow their arguments. I've seen neither of these so far.
            • We have had some conversations with funders and non-funders of VillageReach; we have requested, and been denied, permission to publish notes from these conversations. We did discuss some general impressions from these conversations at http://blog.givewell.org/2010/11/17/after-extraordinary-and-unorthodox-comes-the-valley-of-death/ . We have been talking about spending more time talking to funders, non-funders and potential funders of particularly promising charities, and if we do this we will continue to make efforts to make as much content as possible public.
            Best,
            Holden

            On Sun, May 1, 2011 at 4:22 AM, Jonah Sinick <jsinick2@...> wrote:
             

            Hi Vipul,

            While one may be able to gain some insight into the reasons for supporting a charity from talking to a large donors, I think that there's reason to think that in a given instance the probability of getting a useful answer is fairly low. One data point in this direction the Gates Foundation's grant for Japan release and their answers to GiveWell's questions. I've formed a general impression that in many (most?) cases large donors do not carefully analyze charities with a view toward optimizing the positive impact of their donations.

            In the case of Peter Thiel I'll note that according the data available on Wikipedia
            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Philanthropy
            it seems like his donations to the said organizations are in the range of $1 million per year which is in the neighborhood of 1% of his annual earnings. The fact that the amount that he donated to them was such a low percentage of such a high income suggests lack of seriousness of purpose. Moreover, the sorts of assumptions under which marginal donations to SIAI would be of comparable expected utility to marginal donations to the Seasteading Institute are very special assumptions which seem unlikely to hold - this suggests that Thiel may be funding at least one of them without a view toward maximizing expected utility.

            If you're interested in donating to one or more of organizations mentioned in the Breakthrough Philanthropy you might consider visiting them personally.  Each of SIAI, SENS and the Seasteading Institute is in the San Francisco bay area which is a place that one might end up visiting for any number of reasons. I visited SIAI last December and was received hospitably.

            Jonah





            On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 7:14 PM, Vipul Naik <vipul@...> wrote:
             

            Dear Holden/GiveWell,

            Thanks a lot for this update. In the transcript, the SIAI people
            mention two people, Peter Thiel (also mentioned in my earlier email)
            and Jaan Tallin. You say that you already know about Peter Thiel. Does
            this mean that you at GiveWell have already talked to him, or that you
            have read enough of his public writings/speeches that you think you
            have a fair idea of his reasons for supporting SIAI?

            If you have a record of a conversation that you have had with Peter
            Thiel (or somebody from his foundation) on these organizations, would
            it be possible for you to make it public?

            More generally, have you made public any of your records of
            conversations with foundations or other large-scale donors whom you've
            approached for information on the charities that they fund?

            Thanks, and keep up the good work!

            Vipul

            * Quoting Holden Karnofsky who at 2011-04-30 14:38:02+0000 (Sat) wrote


            > We've had a fair number of requests to evaluate the Singularity Institute
            > for Artificial Intelligence, which Vipul mentioned in a recent email. This
            > organization is pretty far outside the scope of what we normally look at, so
            > we haven't done a formal review, but I did have a sit-down with
            > representatives from this group in February, and have gotten their
            > permission to publish a paraphrased transcript of our conversation. This
            > document gives a good overview of my view on SIAI.
            >
            > In a nutshell, I have sympathy for SIAI's goals, but I do not believe that
            > it currently has the (a) track record / credibility (b) room for more
            > funding that it would have to in order to interest me in donating to it.
            > There is one SIAI supporter/endorser I'm interested in speaking to to learn
            > more (mentioned in the transcript). We're going to keep an eye on the group.
            >
            > Paraphrased transcript of my conversation with SIAI representatives:
            > http://www.givewell.org/files/MiscCharities/SIAI/siai%202011%2002%20III.doc
            >
            > SIAI website: http://www.singinst.org



          • Jonah Sinick
            Holden, ... add is that a billionaire donating 1% of his or her income isn t a strong signal of seriousness of purpose - at such revenue levels one has a huge
            Message 5 of 7 , May 3, 2011
              Holden,

              Thanks for raising these good points:

              • I am not so sure that his giving a relatively small % of income indicates a lack of seriousness of purpose. The fact that he doesn't give more may come from issues related to (a) room for more funding; (b) checking one's own beliefs by asking that a project raise some money from elsewhere (his donation to SIAI is already a very large proportion of its total revenue).
              My thinking in my last email to the mailing list was muddled. All I would add is that a billionaire donating 1% of his or her income isn't a strong signal of seriousness of purpose - at such revenue levels one has a huge amount of disposable income and one may not be so careful as to how one spends a very small fraction of it.

              On a different note, there was just a post on Less Wrong here http://lesswrong.com/lw/5il/siai_an_examination/ giving a very detailed analysis of SIAI's finances and activities over the past five years. Again, this doesn't address the issues which Holden (and myself in fact) see as key.

              Jonah


                On Sun, May 1, 2011 at 4:22 AM, Jonah Sinick <jsinick2@...> wrote:
                 

                Hi Vipul,

                While one may be able to gain some insight into the reasons for supporting a charity from talking to a large donors, I think that there's reason to think that in a given instance the probability of getting a useful answer is fairly low. One data point in this direction the Gates Foundation's grant for Japan release and their answers to GiveWell's questions. I've formed a general impression that in many (most?) cases large donors do not carefully analyze charities with a view toward optimizing the positive impact of their donations.

                In the case of Peter Thiel I'll note that according the data available on Wikipedia
                http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Philanthropy
                it seems like his donations to the said organizations are in the range of $1 million per year which is in the neighborhood of 1% of his annual earnings. The fact that the amount that he donated to them was such a low percentage of such a high income suggests lack of seriousness of purpose. Moreover, the sorts of assumptions under which marginal donations to SIAI would be of comparable expected utility to marginal donations to the Seasteading Institute are very special assumptions which seem unlikely to hold - this suggests that Thiel may be funding at least one of them without a view toward maximizing expected utility.

                If you're interested in donating to one or more of organizations mentioned in the Breakthrough Philanthropy you might consider visiting them personally.  Each of SIAI, SENS and the Seasteading Institute is in the San Francisco bay area which is a place that one might end up visiting for any number of reasons. I visited SIAI last December and was received hospitably.

                Jonah





                On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 7:14 PM, Vipul Naik <vipul@...> wrote:
                 

                Dear Holden/GiveWell,

                Thanks a lot for this update. In the transcript, the SIAI people
                mention two people, Peter Thiel (also mentioned in my earlier email)
                and Jaan Tallin. You say that you already know about Peter Thiel. Does
                this mean that you at GiveWell have already talked to him, or that you
                have read enough of his public writings/speeches that you think you
                have a fair idea of his reasons for supporting SIAI?

                If you have a record of a conversation that you have had with Peter
                Thiel (or somebody from his foundation) on these organizations, would
                it be possible for you to make it public?

                More generally, have you made public any of your records of
                conversations with foundations or other large-scale donors whom you've
                approached for information on the charities that they fund?

                Thanks, and keep up the good work!

                Vipul

                * Quoting Holden Karnofsky who at 2011-04-30 14:38:02+0000 (Sat) wrote


                > We've had a fair number of requests to evaluate the Singularity Institute
                > for Artificial Intelligence, which Vipul mentioned in a recent email. This
                > organization is pretty far outside the scope of what we normally look at, so
                > we haven't done a formal review, but I did have a sit-down with
                > representatives from this group in February, and have gotten their
                > permission to publish a paraphrased transcript of our conversation. This
                > document gives a good overview of my view on SIAI.
                >
                > In a nutshell, I have sympathy for SIAI's goals, but I do not believe that
                > it currently has the (a) track record / credibility (b) room for more
                > funding that it would have to in order to interest me in donating to it.
                > There is one SIAI supporter/endorser I'm interested in speaking to to learn
                > more (mentioned in the transcript). We're going to keep an eye on the group.
                >
                > Paraphrased transcript of my conversation with SIAI representatives:
                > http://www.givewell.org/files/MiscCharities/SIAI/siai%202011%2002%20III.doc
                >
                > SIAI website: http://www.singinst.org




              • Jonah Sinick
                On a different note, there was just a post on Less Wrong here ... (But which may nevertheless be of interest to other donors)
                Message 6 of 7 , May 3, 2011

                  On a different note, there was just a post on Less Wrong here http://lesswrong.com/lw/5il/siai_an_examination/ giving a very detailed analysis of SIAI's finances and activities over the past five years. Again, this doesn't address the issues which Holden (and myself in fact) see as key.

                  (But which may nevertheless be of interest to other donors)
                   

                  Jonah


                  On Sun, May 1, 2011 at 4:22 AM, Jonah Sinick <jsinick2@...> wrote:
                   

                  Hi Vipul,

                  While one may be able to gain some insight into the reasons for supporting a charity from talking to a large donors, I think that there's reason to think that in a given instance the probability of getting a useful answer is fairly low. One data point in this direction the Gates Foundation's grant for Japan release and their answers to GiveWell's questions. I've formed a general impression that in many (most?) cases large donors do not carefully analyze charities with a view toward optimizing the positive impact of their donations.

                  In the case of Peter Thiel I'll note that according the data available on Wikipedia
                  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Philanthropy
                  it seems like his donations to the said organizations are in the range of $1 million per year which is in the neighborhood of 1% of his annual earnings. The fact that the amount that he donated to them was such a low percentage of such a high income suggests lack of seriousness of purpose. Moreover, the sorts of assumptions under which marginal donations to SIAI would be of comparable expected utility to marginal donations to the Seasteading Institute are very special assumptions which seem unlikely to hold - this suggests that Thiel may be funding at least one of them without a view toward maximizing expected utility.

                  If you're interested in donating to one or more of organizations mentioned in the Breakthrough Philanthropy you might consider visiting them personally.  Each of SIAI, SENS and the Seasteading Institute is in the San Francisco bay area which is a place that one might end up visiting for any number of reasons. I visited SIAI last December and was received hospitably.

                  Jonah





                  On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 7:14 PM, Vipul Naik <vipul@...> wrote:
                   

                  Dear Holden/GiveWell,

                  Thanks a lot for this update. In the transcript, the SIAI people
                  mention two people, Peter Thiel (also mentioned in my earlier email)
                  and Jaan Tallin. You say that you already know about Peter Thiel. Does
                  this mean that you at GiveWell have already talked to him, or that you
                  have read enough of his public writings/speeches that you think you
                  have a fair idea of his reasons for supporting SIAI?

                  If you have a record of a conversation that you have had with Peter
                  Thiel (or somebody from his foundation) on these organizations, would
                  it be possible for you to make it public?

                  More generally, have you made public any of your records of
                  conversations with foundations or other large-scale donors whom you've
                  approached for information on the charities that they fund?

                  Thanks, and keep up the good work!

                  Vipul

                  * Quoting Holden Karnofsky who at 2011-04-30 14:38:02+0000 (Sat) wrote


                  > We've had a fair number of requests to evaluate the Singularity Institute
                  > for Artificial Intelligence, which Vipul mentioned in a recent email. This
                  > organization is pretty far outside the scope of what we normally look at, so
                  > we haven't done a formal review, but I did have a sit-down with
                  > representatives from this group in February, and have gotten their
                  > permission to publish a paraphrased transcript of our conversation. This
                  > document gives a good overview of my view on SIAI.
                  >
                  > In a nutshell, I have sympathy for SIAI's goals, but I do not believe that
                  > it currently has the (a) track record / credibility (b) room for more
                  > funding that it would have to in order to interest me in donating to it.
                  > There is one SIAI supporter/endorser I'm interested in speaking to to learn
                  > more (mentioned in the transcript). We're going to keep an eye on the group.
                  >
                  > Paraphrased transcript of my conversation with SIAI representatives:
                  > http://www.givewell.org/files/MiscCharities/SIAI/siai%202011%2002%20III.doc
                  >
                  > SIAI website: http://www.singinst.org





                • Holden Karnofsky
                  Hello all, I did end up speaking to Jaan Tallinn (Dario Amodei joined me on the phone call), and we continued a sporadic exchange over email for the next
                  Message 7 of 7 , Jul 18, 2011
                  Hello all,

                  I did end up speaking to Jaan Tallinn (Dario Amodei joined me on the phone call), and we continued a sporadic exchange over email for the next couple of months. With his permission, I've consolidated both the notes from the phone conversation and the text of the emails into the attached document. It is a long conversation and the formatting is a bit inconsistent, but I thought I'd share it anyway in case people are interested.

                  I may provide a summary of the content at a later date, but my key high-level takeaways are that
                  • I appreciated Jaan's thoughtfulness and willingness to engage in depth. It was an interesting exchange.
                  • I continue to disagree with the way that SIAI is thinking about the "Friendliness" problem. 
                  • It seems to me that all the ways in which Jaan and I disagree on this topic have more to do with philosophy (how to quantify uncertainty; how to deal with conjunctions; how to act in consideration of low probabilities) and with social science-type intuitions (how would people likely use a particular sort of AI) than with computer science or programming (what properties has software usually had historically; which of these properties become incoherent/hard to imagine when applied to AGI)
                  This conversation is not as important to my view of SIAI as the conversation with its representatives, which I sent out previously and which I considered sufficient to reach a stance on SIAI for GiveWell's purposes; but since we did have the discussion and people might be interested, I'm sending it out.

                  Best,
                  Holden

                  On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 3:30 PM, Jonah Sinick <jsinick2@...> wrote:
                   



                  On a different note, there was just a post on Less Wrong here http://lesswrong.com/lw/5il/siai_an_examination/ giving a very detailed analysis of SIAI's finances and activities over the past five years. Again, this doesn't address the issues which Holden (and myself in fact) see as key.

                  (But which may nevertheless be of interest to other donors)
                   

                  Jonah


                  On Sun, May 1, 2011 at 4:22 AM, Jonah Sinick <jsinick2@...> wrote:
                   

                  Hi Vipul,

                  While one may be able to gain some insight into the reasons for supporting a charity from talking to a large donors, I think that there's reason to think that in a given instance the probability of getting a useful answer is fairly low. One data point in this direction the Gates Foundation's grant for Japan release and their answers to GiveWell's questions. I've formed a general impression that in many (most?) cases large donors do not carefully analyze charities with a view toward optimizing the positive impact of their donations.

                  In the case of Peter Thiel I'll note that according the data available on Wikipedia
                  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Philanthropy
                  it seems like his donations to the said organizations are in the range of $1 million per year which is in the neighborhood of 1% of his annual earnings. The fact that the amount that he donated to them was such a low percentage of such a high income suggests lack of seriousness of purpose. Moreover, the sorts of assumptions under which marginal donations to SIAI would be of comparable expected utility to marginal donations to the Seasteading Institute are very special assumptions which seem unlikely to hold - this suggests that Thiel may be funding at least one of them without a view toward maximizing expected utility.

                  If you're interested in donating to one or more of organizations mentioned in the Breakthrough Philanthropy you might consider visiting them personally.  Each of SIAI, SENS and the Seasteading Institute is in the San Francisco bay area which is a place that one might end up visiting for any number of reasons. I visited SIAI last December and was received hospitably.

                  Jonah





                  On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 7:14 PM, Vipul Naik <vipul@...> wrote:
                   

                  Dear Holden/GiveWell,

                  Thanks a lot for this update. In the transcript, the SIAI people
                  mention two people, Peter Thiel (also mentioned in my earlier email)
                  and Jaan Tallin. You say that you already know about Peter Thiel. Does
                  this mean that you at GiveWell have already talked to him, or that you
                  have read enough of his public writings/speeches that you think you
                  have a fair idea of his reasons for supporting SIAI?

                  If you have a record of a conversation that you have had with Peter
                  Thiel (or somebody from his foundation) on these organizations, would
                  it be possible for you to make it public?

                  More generally, have you made public any of your records of
                  conversations with foundations or other large-scale donors whom you've
                  approached for information on the charities that they fund?

                  Thanks, and keep up the good work!

                  Vipul

                  * Quoting Holden Karnofsky who at 2011-04-30 14:38:02+0000 (Sat) wrote


                  > We've had a fair number of requests to evaluate the Singularity Institute
                  > for Artificial Intelligence, which Vipul mentioned in a recent email. This
                  > organization is pretty far outside the scope of what we normally look at, so
                  > we haven't done a formal review, but I did have a sit-down with
                  > representatives from this group in February, and have gotten their
                  > permission to publish a paraphrased transcript of our conversation. This
                  > document gives a good overview of my view on SIAI.
                  >
                  > In a nutshell, I have sympathy for SIAI's goals, but I do not believe that
                  > it currently has the (a) track record / credibility (b) room for more
                  > funding that it would have to in order to interest me in donating to it.
                  > There is one SIAI supporter/endorser I'm interested in speaking to to learn
                  > more (mentioned in the transcript). We're going to keep an eye on the group.
                  >
                  > Paraphrased transcript of my conversation with SIAI representatives:
                  > http://www.givewell.org/files/MiscCharities/SIAI/siai%202011%2002%20III.doc
                  >
                  > SIAI website: http://www.singinst.org






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