Elon Musk donates $10M to the Future of Life Institute to keep AI beneficial

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2015·LessWrong·lesswrong.com/posts/FuCZdbQ3h6782bnY6/elon-musk-donates-u...

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Paul Crowley

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A historically significant news post from 2015 documenting early major philanthropic investment in AI safety; relevant for understanding the origins of institutional AI safety funding and the role of FLI in the field.

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AI RiskEffective altruismFuture of Life Institute

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Summary

Elon Musk donated $10 million to the Future of Life Institute (FLI) in January 2015 to fund research aimed at keeping artificial intelligence safe and beneficial. The grant was intended to support technical AI safety research as well as outreach and policy-related work. This represented one of the first major philanthropic investments specifically targeting AI safety.

Key Points

•Elon Musk pledged $10M to FLI in 2015, marking a significant early milestone in philanthropic funding for AI safety research.
•The donation followed the open letter on AI safety signed by hundreds of researchers, signaling growing mainstream concern about AI risks.
•Funds were directed toward both technical AI safety research and policy/governance initiatives.
•This represented one of the first large-scale public commitments to ensuring AI development remains beneficial to humanity.
•The grant helped legitimize AI safety as a serious research area and catalyzed further funding and attention from other donors.

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# Elon Musk donates $10M to the Future of Life Institute to keep AI beneficial 
By Paul Crowley
Published: 2015-01-15
We are delighted to report that technology inventor Elon Musk, creator of Tesla and SpaceX, has decided to donate $10M to the Future of Life Institute to run a global research program aimed at keeping AI beneficial to humanity. 

There is now a broad consensus that AI research is progressing steadily, and that its impact on society is likely to increase. A long list of leading AI-researchers have signed an [open letter](http://futureoflife.org/misc/open_letter) calling for research aimed at ensuring that AI systems are robust and beneficial, doing what we want them to do. Musk's donation aims to support precisely this type of research: _"Here are all these leading AI researchers saying that AI safety is important"_, says Elon Musk. _"I agree with them, so I'm today committing $10M to support research aimed at keeping AI beneficial for humanity." _

\[...\] The $10M program will be administered by the Future of Life Institute, a non-profit organization whose scientific advisory board includes AI-researchers Stuart Russell and Francesca Rossi. \[...\]

The research supported by the program will be carried out around the globe via an open grants competition, through an application portal at [http://futureoflife.org](http://futureoflife.org) that will open by Thursday January 22. The plan is to award the majority of the grant funds to AI researchers, and the remainder to AI-related research involving other fields such as economics, law, ethics and policy  (a detailed list of examples can be found [here](http://futureoflife.org/static/data/documents/research_priorities.pdf) \[PDF\]). _"Anybody can send in a grant proposal, and the best ideas will win regardless of whether they come from academia, industry or elsewhere"_, says FLI co-founder Viktoriya Krakovna. 

\[...\] Along with research grants, the program will also include meetings and outreach programs aimed at bringing together academic AI researchers, industry AI developers and other key constituents to continue exploring how to maximize the societal benefits of AI; one such meeting was held in Puerto Rico last week with many of the open-letter signatories. 

[Elon Musk donates $10M to keep AI beneficial, Future of Life Institute, Thursday January 15, 2015](http://futureoflife.org/misc/ai)

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