Communications - Future of Life Institute (original) (raw)
Introduction
Informing the discourse around our focus areas.
The outreach team works to improve awareness, provide accurate and accessible information, and deepen understanding of our focus areas. Using evidence-based strategies of risk communication, we seek to emphasise positive steps by which extreme risks from transformative technologies can be reduced, and global prospects enhanced.
To these ends, we create informative content, operate dynamic social media accounts, collaborate with journalists, and run the Future of Life Award, celebrating unsung heroic individual efforts which made our world a better, safer place.
Our work
Outreach projects
Learn more about our ongoing projects:
The Pro-Human AI Declaration
A remarkable bipartisan coalition of leading organizations and prominent figures have announced their support for a set of Pro-Human principles to guide our shared future with AI.
Protect What’s Human
We’re building a pro-human movement for commonsense regulation to keep AI safe and under our control, kicking off with a national ad campaign airing in the US.
Control Inversion
Why the superintelligent AI agents we are racing to create would absorb power, not grant it | The latest study from Anthony Aguirre.
Statement on Superintelligence
A stunningly broad coalition has come out against unsafe superintelligence: AI researchers, faith leaders, business pioneers, policymakers, National Security staff, and actors stand together.
Creative Contest: Keep The Future Human
$100,000+ in prizes for creative digital media that engages with the essay's key ideas, helps them to reach a wider range of people, and motivates action in the real world.
Digital Media Accelerator
The Digital Media Accelerator supports digital content from creators raising awareness and understanding about ongoing AI developments and issues.
Keep The Future Human
Why and how we should close the gates to AGI and superintelligence, and what we should build instead | A new essay by Anthony Aguirre, Executive Director of FLI.
Superintelligence Imagined Creative Contest
A contest for the best creative educational materials on superintelligence, its associated risks, and the implications of this technology for our world. 5 prizes at $10,000 each.
The Elders Letter on Existential Threats
The Elders, the Future of Life Institute and a diverse range of preeminent public figures are calling on world leaders to urgently address the ongoing harms and escalating risks of the climate crisis, pandemics, nuclear weapons, and ungoverned AI.
Combatting Deepfakes
As part of a growing coalition of concerned organizations, FLI is calling on lawmakers to take meaningful steps to disrupt the AI-driven deepfake supply chain.
Educating about Autonomous Weapons
Military AI applications are rapidly expanding. We develop educational materials about how certain narrow classes of AI-powered weapons can harm national security and destabilize civilization, notably weapons where kill decisions are fully delegated to algorithms.
Artificial Escalation
Our fictional film depicts a world where artificial intelligence ('AI') is integrated into nuclear command, control and communications systems ('NC3') with terrifying results.
Worldbuilding Competition
The Future of Life Institute accepted entries from teams across the globe, to compete for a prize purse of up to $100,000 by designing visions of a plausible, aspirational future that includes strong artificial intelligence.
Future of Life Award
Every year, the Future of Life Award is given to one or more unsung heroes who have made a significant contribution to preserving the future of life.
Future of Life Institute Podcast
A podcast dedicated to hosting conversations with some of the world's leading thinkers and doers in the field of emerging technology and risk reduction. 140+ episodes since 2015, 4.8/5 stars on Apple Podcasts.
Our content
Featured videos
Here a few of the videos that we have produced ourselves, or in collaboration with other content creators:
Achievements
Some of the things we have achieved
Here are a few of our proudest achievements in this area:
Celebrated 18 unsung heroes with Future of Life Awards
Every year since 2017, the Future of Life Award has celebrated the contributions of people who helped preserve the prospects of life.
Produced a viral video series raising the alarm on lethal autonomous weapons
We produced two short films, with a combined 75+ million views, depicting a world in which lethal autonomous weapons have been allowed to proliferate.
Interviewed over 100+ key experts in our focus areas
Over the past 5 years, our team has hosted in-depth conversations with over 100+ leading figures in fields relating to our focus areas, all available for free on our podcast.
Media mentions
Prominent Scientists, Faith Leaders, Policymakers and Artists Call for a Prohibition on Superintelligence, as Poll Shows Americans Don’t Want It
Initial signatories include AI pioneers Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton, leading media voices Steve Bannon and Glenn Beck, Obama's National Security Advisor Susan Rice, business trailblazers Steve Wozniak and Richard Branson, five Nobel Laureates, former Irish President Mary Robinson, actors Stephen Fry and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and hundreds of others.
Resources
Featured resources
Trillion Dollar Nukes
Would you spend $1.2 trillion tax dollars on nuclear weapons? How much are nuclear weapons really worth? Is upgrading the […]
1100 Declassified U.S. Nuclear Targets
The National Security Archives recently published a declassified list of U.S. nuclear targets from 1956, which spanned 1,100 locations across Eastern Europe, Russia, China, and North Korea. The map below shows all 1,100 nuclear targets from that list, and we’ve partnered with NukeMap to demonstrate how catastrophic a nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia could be.
Our team
Meet our outreach team
We're a 100% remote team spread all across the western hemisphere.
Andrew (Shan) Shanahan
Editor
Future of Life Institute
Ben Cumming
Communications Director
Future of Life Institute
Chase Hardin
US Communications Manager
Future of Life Institute
Gus Docker
Podcast Host & Director
Future of Life Institute
Maggie Munro
Communications Strategist
Future of Life Institute
Taylor Jones
Design & Web Manager
Future of Life Institute
Contact us
Let's put you in touch with the right person.
We do our best to respond to all incoming queries within three business days. Our team is spread across the globe, so please be considerate and remember that the person you are contacting may not be in your timezone.
Please direct media requests and speaking invitations for Max Tegmark to press@futureoflife.org. All other inquiries can be sent to contact@futureoflife.org.