--- category: Modern Incident created: 2026-06-19 location: Stanford, California (2006); rotating sites summary: The Singularity Summit was an annual conference on artificial intelligence and human enhancement cofounded in 2006 by Peter Thiel, Eliezer Yudkowsky, and Ray Kurzweil, that ran through 2012 as the public-facing platform of the Singularity Institute before the brand was sold to Singularity University in 2013. tags: - Event - SingularitySummit - PeterThiel - Transhumanism - ArtificialIntelligence - MIRI - Rationalism updated: 2026-06-19 --- The Singularity Summit was an annual conference on artificial intelligence, transhumanism, and human enhancement cofounded in 2006 by [Peter Thiel](/people/peter-thiel/), [Eliezer Yudkowsky](/people/eliezer-yudkowsky/), and the futurist Ray Kurzweil. The inaugural event was held at [Stanford University](/organizations/stanford-university/), and over the following six years the summit grew into a prominent gathering for futurists, transhumanists, and artificial-intelligence researchers. It served as the public-facing platform of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (later the [Machine Intelligence Research Institute](/organizations/machine-intelligence-research-institute/)) and as the early convening surface of the [Rationalist Community](/concepts/rationalist-community/).[^1][^2] ### Thiel's Funding and Platform Thiel began funding Yudkowsky's Singularity Institute in 2005 and cofounded the summit the next year. He delivered keynote addresses and was the institute's most prominent backer through the summit's run, with cumulative donations later reported as exceeding 1.6 million dollars. The summit gave Thiel a recurring public stage adjacent to the AI-risk and life-extension communities and helped concentrate the San Francisco Bay Area rationalist scene in its formative years. The roster of speakers across the summit's life spanned scientists, technologists, and transhumanist figures, including Kurzweil, the cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter, and the inventor and entrepreneur cohort around the institute.[^2][^3] After the 2006 Stanford debut the conference moved to San Francisco in 2007 and San Jose in 2008, then began alternating between the Bay Area and New York, with the 2009 and 2011 editions held in New York City and the rest on the West Coast. The 2009 summit at New York's 92nd Street Y featured a "Changing the World" panel pairing Thiel with Yudkowsky and the biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey on philanthropy and proactive world-changing. Speakers across the years included the philosopher David Chalmers, the AI researcher Ben Goertzel, and the science-fiction author Vernor Vinge, whose 1993 essay had popularized the term "technological singularity."[^5][^6] ### Sale and Aftermath The final summit ran October 13 to 14, 2012, at the Masonic Center in San Francisco, drawing more than 600 attendees, with Kurzweil delivering the keynote and Thiel speaking on "Back to the Future." The lineup that year included the psychologist Steven Pinker, the autism researcher Temple Grandin, the 23andMe cofounder Linda Avey, the Google research director Peter Norvig, and the skeptic [James Randi](/people/james-randi/). Singularity University announced its acquisition of the summit in December 2012.[^5] In January 2013 the Singularity Institute completed the sale of the Singularity Summit and the "Singularity" name to Kurzweil's Singularity University, and the research organization renamed itself the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, narrowing its public profile to technical AI-alignment work. Thiel's interest in the project cooled over the following years, and in 2025 he publicly denounced Yudkowsky, naming him as an example of the technology-stopping figure his [Antichrist](/concepts/antichrist/) lectures warned against.[^1][^4] [^1]: Intelligence.org (Machine Intelligence Research Institute), "Singularity Summit" archive. https://intelligence.org/singularitysummit/ [^2]: Hagey, Keach. *The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future.* W. W. Norton, 2025, on Thiel funding Yudkowsky's Singularity Institute from 2005 and cofounding the 2006 Singularity Summit at Stanford. [^3]: "Peter Thiel (Funder)," reported cumulative donations to the Singularity Institute exceeding 1.6 million dollars; cross-referenced against the MIRI donation timeline at timelines.issarice.com. [^4]: "Peter Thiel Thinks the Antichrist Is 'Someone Like' This AI Doomer That He Funded," *Gizmodo,* October 2025. https://gizmodo.com/peter-thiel-thinks-the-antichrist-is-someone-like-this-ai-doomer-that-he-funded-2000671027 [^5]: "Singularity Summit 2012 Is Coming To San Francisco October 13-14," *Singularity Hub,* August 29, 2012, on the Masonic Center venue, the 600-plus attendance, the Kurzweil keynote, the Thiel "Back to the Future" talk, and the speaker roster; and the December 2012 Singularity University acquisition announcement. https://singularityhub.com/2012/08/29/singularity-summit-2012-is-coming-to-san-francisco-october-13-14/ [^6]: "Singularity Summit 2009 In New York October 3-4," *Singularity Hub,* July 23, 2009, on the 92nd Street Y venue and the Thiel, Yudkowsky, and Aubrey de Grey "Changing the World" panel; and the year-by-year venue rotation. https://singularityhub.com/2009/07/23/singularity-summit-2009-in-new-york-october-3-4/