FLI Artificial Superintelligence Project

1 July 2015

We are writing to announce that GCRI has received a grant from the Future of Life Institute, with funding provided by Elon Musk and the Open Philanthropy Project. The official announcement is here and the full list of awardees is here.

GCRI’s project team includes Tony Barrett, Seth Baum, and Roman Yampolskiy. Here is the project title and summary:

Evaluation of Safe Development Pathways for Artificial Superintelligence

Some experts believe that computers could eventually become a lot smarter than humans are. They call it artificial superintelligence, or ASI. If people build ASI, it could be either very good or very bad for humanity. However, ASI is not well understood, which makes it difficult for people to act to enable good ASI and avoid bad ASI. Our project studies the ways that people could build ASI in order to help people act in better ways. We will model the different steps that need to occur for people to build ASI. We will estimate how likely it is that these steps will occur, and when they might occur. We will also model the actions people can take, and we will calculate how much the actions will help. For example, governments may be able to require that ASI researchers build in safety measures. Our models will include both the government action and the ASI safety measures, to learn about how well it all works. This project is an important step towards making sure that humanity avoids bad ASI and, if it wishes, creates good ASI.

Recent Updates from GCRI

2024 Annual Report

Letter from the Executive Director GCRI ends 2024 with our smallest team ever, but it’s not for lack of risks in the world. The war in Ukraine rages on, and tensions among nuclear-armed states are far from resolved. H5N1 influenza has spread widely among birds, with...

Tony Barrett Moves to Senior Advisor

GCRI co-founder Tony Barrett has left his position as Director of Research and is now in the position of Senior Advisor. The move comes as Dr. Barrett begins a new role in the US government, which precluded his continuing as Director of Research. Dr. Barrett’s new...

2024 GCRI Fellowship Program

GCRI is pleased to announce the 2024 Fellowship Program. The GCRI Fellowship Program aims to highlight exceptional collaborators GCRI had the opportunity to partner with over the course of the year. This year, we have three Fellows. One of them is collaborating with...