Tax ID no. 47-1052538 Website futureoflife.org | Legal status Active | |
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Formation March 2014; 3 years ago (2014-03) Purpose Mitigation of existential risk Similar Giving What We Can, GiveWell, OpenAI, GiveDirectly, Against Malaria Foundation | ||
The Future of Life Institute (FLI) is a volunteer-run research and outreach organization in the Boston area that works to mitigate existential risks facing humanity, particularly existential risk from advanced artificial intelligence (AI). Its founders include MIT cosmologist Max Tegmark, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, and its board of advisors includes cosmologist Stephen Hawking and entrepreneur Elon Musk.
Contents
Background
The FLI mission is to catalyze and support research and initiatives for safeguarding life and developing optimistic visions of the future, including positive ways for humanity to steer its own course considering new technologies and challenges. FLI is particularly focused on the potential risks to humanity from the development of human-level artificial intelligence.
The institute was founded in March 2014 by MIT cosmologist Max Tegmark, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, Harvard graduate student and IMO medalist Viktoriya Krakovna, BU graduate student Meia Chita-Tegmark (Tegmark's wife), and UCSC physicist Anthony Aguirre. The institute's advisory board includes computer scientist Stuart J. Russell, biologist George Church, cosmologists Stephen Hawking and Saul Perlmutter, theoretical physicist Frank Wilczek, entrepreneur Elon Musk, and actors and science communicators Alan Alda and Morgan Freeman. FLI operates grassroots-style to recruit volunteers and younger scholars from the local community in the Boston area.
Events
On May 24, 2014, FLI held a panel discussion on "The Future of Technology: Benefits and Risks" at MIT, moderated by Alan Alda. The panelists were synthetic biologist George Church, geneticist Ting Wu, economist Andrew McAfee, physicist and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek and Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn. The discussion covered a broad range of topics from the future of bioengineering and personal genetics to autonomous weapons, AI ethics and the Singularity.
On January 2, 2015 through January 5th, 2015, the Future of Life Institute organized and hosted "The Future of AI: Opportunities and Challenges" conference, which brought together the world's leading AI builders from academia and industry to engage with each other and experts in economics, law, and ethics. The goal was to identify promising research directions that can help maximize the future benefits of AI. The institute circulated an open letter on AI safety at the conference which was subsequently signed by Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and many artificial intelligence experts.
Global research program
On January 15, 2015, the Future of Life Institute announced that Elon Musk had donated $10 million to fund a global AI research endeavor. On January 22, 2015, the FLI released a request for proposals from researchers in academic and other non-profit institutions. Unlike typical AI research, this program is focused on making AI safer or more beneficial to society, rather than just more powerful. On July 1, 2015, a total of $7 million was awarded to 37 research projects.