Inside Philanthropy - AI Regulation Funding

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 Credit: Tada Images/Shutterstock Philanthropy’s relationship with AI is a complicated one — and with good reason. On the one hand, AI has helped make significant strides in the fields of science and medicine — for instance, in the development of COVID-19 vaccines. Philanthropic funders have backed and continue to support AI-driven research and development in these fields. 

 Funders have also begun supporting AI implementation in the nonprofit sector, funding things like equitable access, training and education. Unsurprisingly, tech funders are leading that charge. The newly minted OpenAI Foundation , for instance, awarded $40.5 million to more than 200 organizations working to “strengthen communities and expand the opportunity of AI” through its People-First AI Fund . 

 On the other hand, it’s impossible for the civic sector to ignore the harms that AI can cause — and has caused already. From the legal and ethical dilemmas around how large language models are trained, to mass firings and job losses, there are significant downsides to the largely unchecked way AI is being used today, particularly generative AI. Most recently, Elon Musk’s AI company xAI has come under fire as Grok, xAI’s chatbot, has been used to generate explicit images of women and children. 

 Though society-wide debate around AI is still relatively new and the terrain is shifting quickly, some philanthropic funders are supporting AI safety and regulation, ranging from research about AI’s potential risks to support for advocacy groups pushing legislation to regulate the industry. Grantmakers are facing an uphill battle; funding for AI safety is dwarfed by the amount of money tech companies have spent on AI. Still, there are several funders and collaboratives worth noting. Below, we take a look at a selection of them.

 Humanity AI

 Last fall, a coalition of philanthropic supporters came together to launch Humanity AI , a five-year, $500 million initiative that seeks to ensure people can help shape the future of AI for society’s general benefit. The initiative is one of the more definite signs that philanthropy is beginning to rally around addressing the challenges stemming from the AI boom. Humanity AI’s initial 10 funders are the Doris Duke Foundation, Ford Foundation, Kapor Foundation, Lumina Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Mozilla Foundation, Omidyar Network, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and Siegel Family Endowment.

 Humanity AI is working to expand the group of people who decide how AI will be designed, developed, deployed and governed. It’s also aiming to strengthen organizations that bring people together to shape AI’s future and to support public goods that put access and control of AI in the hands of people. The initiative will develop strategies to address problems associ

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