I am delighted to announce that GCRI has received a new $250,000 donation from Gordon Irlam that will fund GCRI’s work on AI in 2020. Irlam had previously made a donation of the same amount a year ago, also for AI work.

Irlam explains why he made the donation this way:

“Technical AGI safety is an emerging field. Whether its recommendations to make AGI safe are heeded or ignored carries tremendous weight for the future. Having these recommendations heeded is fundamentally is a social, political, and governance problem. GCRI is unique in that the work it does addresses head on the social, political, and governance aspects making AGI safe.”

All of us at GCRI are grateful for this donation and excited for the work it will enable us to do.

Here is a summary of the specific research and outreach projects funded by this donation:

Continuation of 2019 projects: We will continue select work from the 2019 projects funded by Irlam.

Further support for the AI and global catastrophic risk talent pools: This project extends our successful 2019 advising and collaboration program.

International institutions for AI: This project will evaluate and promote potential international institutions for governing AI, particularly long-term artificial general intelligence (AGI).

AGI expertise: This project will develop and promote best practices for the use of expert judgment to develop an understanding of AGI and to guide important decisions on AGI.

Transfer of safety techniques to AGI projects: This project will investigate how to ensure that technical solutions for AGI safety are implemented in AGI projects.

Global strategy for AGI: This project will develop strategies for maintaining global security at various points in the process of developing and deploying AGI.