Longterm Wiki

FTX Future Fund General Grants

Closed
Grant Round
Funder Organization
Source
Description

FTX Future Fund's main grantmaking program across AI safety, biosecurity, values, and institutions. Ceased operations November 2022 after FTX collapse.

Notes

Operational Feb-Nov 2022. Committed approximately $160M before FTX collapse. Many grants were clawed back in bankruptcy proceedings.

Grants Awarded

62Total: $75M
GrantRecipientAmountDateStatus
Grant to "support Longview’s independent grantmaking on global priorities research, nuclear weapons policy, and other longtermist issues."Longview Philanthropy$15MFeb 2022
Grant for "general support for their activities, including running conferences, supporting student groups, and maintaining online resources."Centre for Effective Altruism$14MMar 2022
Grant to "support Helix Nano running preclinical and Phase 1 trials of a pan-variant Covid-19 vaccine."HelixNano$10MJan 2022
Grant to "support scholarships for talented and promising high school students to use towards educational opportunities and enrolling in a summer program."The Atlas Fellowship$5MJan 2022
Investment in AVECRIS’s "Project DOOR to support the development of a next generation genetic vaccine platform that aims to allow for highly distributed vaccine production using AVECRIS’s advanced DNA vector delivery technology."AVECRIS$4MMay 2022
Grant to "support the development of universal CRISPR-based diagnostics, including paper-based diagnostics that can be used in developing-country settings without electricity."Sherlock Biosciences$2MFeb 2022
Grant to "support Lightcone’s ongoing projects including running the LessWrong forum, hosting conferences and events, and maintaining an office space for Effective Altruist organizations."Lightcone Infrastructure$2MFeb 2022
Grant to "support Prof. Levine, as well as students and collaborators, to work on alignment theory research at the Cornell math department."Cornell University$2MApr 2022
The grant description states: "We recommended a grant to support the hiring of several key staff for Dr. Kevin Esvelt’s pandemic prevention work. SecureBio is working to implement universal DNA synthesis screening, build a reliable early warning system, and coordinate the development of improved personal protective equipment and its delivery to essential workers when needed."$1MMar 2022
Grant to "support work on technology for delivering mRNA vaccines without lipid nanoparticles with the aim of making vaccines more safe, affordable, and scalable."Piezo Therapeutics$1MMay 2022
Grant to "support outreach to help students to learn about career options, develop their skills, and plan their careers to work on the world’s most pressing problems."Non Trivial Pursuits$1MMay 2022
Investment to "support development of statistical models and software tools that can automate parts of the regulatory process for complex clinical trials."Confirm Solutions$1MMay 2022
Grant to "support prizes for outstanding writing which encourages a broader public conversation around effective altruism and longtermism."Effective Ideas Blog Prize$900KJan 2022
Grant to "support SI’s policy work with the United Nations system on the prevention of existential risks to humanity."Simon Institute For Longterm Governance$820KApr 2022
Grant to "support a project to develop interactive AI algorithms for alignment that can uncover the causal features in human reward systems, and thereby help AI systems learn underlying human values that generalize to new situations."University Of California, Berkeley$800KMay 2022
Grant to "support one year of operating expenses and salaries at the Legal Priorities Project, a longtermist legal research and field-building organization."Legal Priorities Project$700KJun 2022
Grant to "support Giving What We Can’s mission to create a world in which giving effectively and significantly is a cultural norm."Giving What We Can$700KMay 2022
Grant to "support Rethink’s research and projects aimed at improving humanity’s long-term prospects." Rethink Priorities also does non-human-centric work (such as research into animal welfare) and more neartermist work, and the grant seems limited to the longtermist work.Rethink Priorities$700KMar 2022
Grant to "support the creation of a pilot version of a forecasting platform, and a paid forecasting team, to make predictions about questions relevant to high-impact research."Sage$700KMay 2022
Grant to "support a project to study how large language models integrated with offline reinforcement learning pose a risk of machine deception and persuasion."University Of California, Berkeley$600KJun 2022
Grant to "support a project to develop a new material -- an ultra-thin polymer-based thin film -- for use in next-generation Personal Protective Equipment which is both more effective and more comfortable."Virginia Tech$500KMay 2022
Grant to "support two years of academic research on long-term economic growth."Brown University$500KJan 2022
Grant to "support Manifold Markets in building a charity prediction market, as an experiment for enabling effective forecasters to direct altruistic donations."Manifold (Prediction Market)$500KMay 2022
Grant to "support research that we hope will be used to help strengthen the bioweapons convention and guide proactive actions to better secure those facilities or stop the dangerous work being done there."MITRE$485KMay 2022
Grant to "support the Institute’s research and policy engagement work on high skilled immigration, biosecurity, and pandemic prevention."Institute For Progress$480KMay 2022
Grant to "support the Legal Priorities Project’s ongoing research and outreach activities. This will allow LPP to pay two new hires and to put on a summer institute for non-US law students in Oxford."Legal Priorities Project$480KApr 2022
Grant to "support the incubation of new charities that will work on health security."Charity Entrepreneurship$470KMay 2022
The grant description says: "We recommended a grant to support a project which will develop and advance ideas for strengthening regional and multilateral cooperation for addressing biological risks and filling gaps in current international institutions. These efforts include promoting the creation of a center with the capacity to rapidly respond to emerging infectious disease threats to prioritize blunting the impact of such events as well as quickly saving lives, and cooperative mechanisms to eCouncil on Strategic Risks$400KMay 2022
Grant to "support the creation of animated videos on topics related to rationality and effective altruism to explain these topics for a broader audience."Rational Animations$400KMay 2022
Grant to "support a postdoc and two research assistants for Professor Braumoeller’s MESO Lab for two years to carry out research on international orders and how they affect the probability of war."Ohio State University$388KApr 2022
Grant to "support research on how to fine-tune GPT-3 models to identify flaws in other fine-tuned language models' arguments for the correctness of their outputs, and to test whether these help nonexpert humans successfully judge such arguments."University Of Cambridge$380KMay 2022
Grant to "support 1DS’ work on pandemic preparedness, including advocacy for advance market purchase commitments, collaboration with the UK Pandemic Ethics Accelerator on challenge studies, and advocacy with 1Day Africa and the West African Health Organization for a global pandemic insurance fund."1Day Sooner$350KJun 2022
Grant to "support HIA’s work encouraging professional athletes to donate more of their earnings to high impact charities and causes, and to promote a culture of giving among their fans."High Impact Athletes$350KApr 2022
Grant to "support Global Guessing’s forecasting coverage on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which they will also use to build tools and infrastructure to support future forecasting work."Global Guessing$336KMay 2022
Grant to "support HIP’s work recruiting EA working professionals to use more of their resources, including their careers, to focus on the world’s most pressing problems."High Impact Professionals$320KMay 2022
Grant to "support ALTER, an academic research and advocacy organization, which hopes to investigate, demonstrate, and foster useful ways to improve the future in the short term, and to safeguard and improve the long-term trajectory of humanity. The organization's initial focus is building bridges to academia via conferences and grants to find researchers who can focus on AI safety, and on policy for reducing biorisk."Association For Long Term Existence And Resilience$320KMay 2022
Grant to "support the completion of a book which explores the nature of human values and the implications for aligning AI with human preferences."Brian Christian$300KMay 2022
The grant description says: "We recommended a grant to support the development of statewide ballot initiatives to institute approval voting. Approval voting is a simple voting method reform that lets voters select all the candidates they wish."The Center For Election Science$300KMar 2022
Grant to "support a Good Judgment initiative to produce forecasts on 10 Our World in Data data sets/charts."Good Judgment (Forecasting)$300KMay 2022
Grant to "partially support the salaries for AI Safety Camp’s two directors and to support logistical expenses at its physical camp."AI Safety Camp$290KJun 2022
Grant to "support research on value alignment in AI systems, practical algorithms for efficient value alignment verification, and user studies and experiments to test these algorithms."University Of Utah$280KMay 2022
Grant to "support a project to develop new plastic surfaces incorporating molecules that can be activated with low-energy visible light to eradicate bacteria and kill viruses continuously."University Of Ottawa$250KMar 2022
Grant to "support Apollo’s work aggregating the views of academic experts in many different fields and making them freely available online."Apollo Academic Surveys$250KMay 2022
Grant to "support the maintenance of a library of high-quality audio content on the world’s most pressing problems, and a fund to provide productivity-enhancing equipment and support staff for people working on important social issues."Nonlinear$250KApr 2022
Grant to "support the identification and implementation of promising confidence-building measures to reduce conflict between India and Pakistan."Stimson South Asia Program$250KApr 2022
Grant to "support a project aimed at training large language models to represent the probability distribution over question answers in a prediction market."Peter Hrosso$230KMay 2022
Grant "for general funding for community building and managing the talent pipeline for AI alignment researchers. AI Safety Support’s work includes one-on-one coaching, events, and research training programs."AI Safety Support$200KMay 2022
Investment to "build a communication platform that provably leaks zero metadata."Anysphere$200KMay 2022
Grant to "support the identification of children in India from under-resourced areas who excel in math, science, and technology, and enable them to obtain high quality online education by digitally connecting them with mentors and teachers."Rajalakshmi Children Foundation$200KMay 2022
Grant to "allow a reputable technology publication to engage 2-5 undergraduate student interns to write about topics including AI safety, alternative proteins, and biosecurity." See https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qoB8MHe94kCEZyswd/i-want-future-perfect-but-for-science-publications for the grantee's original vision.James Lin$190KMay 2022
Grant to "support the creation of a website for collaboratively creating public forecasting questions for a range of prediction aggregators and markets."Nathan Young$182KJun 2022
Grant to "Cecil Abungu, Visiting Researcher at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and Research Affiliate at the Legal Priorities Project, to support the writing and publication of a book on longtermist currents in historical African thought."Cecil Abungu$160KMay 2022
Grant to "support research on the feasibility of inactivating viruses via electromagnetic radiation."Justin Mares$140KMay 2022
Grant to "support EffiSciences’s work promoting high impact research on global priorities (e.g. AI safety, biosecurity, and climate change) among French students and academics, and building up a community of people willing to work on important topics."EffiSciences$135KApr 2022
Grant to "support the creation of biosecurity policy priorities via conversations with experts in security, technology, policy, and advocacy. It will develop position papers, research papers, and agendas for the biosecurity community."Institute For Progress$135KMay 2022
Grant to "support the production of high quality materials for learning about AI safety work."Siddharth Hiregowdara$100KMar 2022
Grant to "support the work of a PhD student [Claudia Shi] working on AI safety at Columbia University."Columbia University$100KApr 2022
Grant to "support a competition for work on Eliciting Latent Knowledge, an open problem in AI alignment, for talented high school and college students who are participating in Prometheus Science Bowl."Prometheus Science Bowl$100KMay 2022
Grant to "support BERI in hiring a second core operations employee to contribute to BERI’s work supporting university research groups."Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative$100KMar 2022
Grant to "support two years of research on the impacts of disruptive space technologies, nuclear risk, and mitigating risks from future space-based weapons."Konstantinos Konstantinidis$85KMay 2022
Grant to "support Pathos Labs to produce a PopShift convening connecting experts on the future of technology and existential risks with television writers to inspire new ideas for their shows."Pathos Labs$50KJan 2022
Grant to "support [Maxwell Tabarrok] to spend a summer at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University researching differential tech development and the connection between existential risks to humanity and economic growth."Maxwell Tabarrok$8KMay 2022