Thank you for caring deeply about advancing science and technology for beneficial futures. Like you, we believe that great futures require progress beyond the scope of current efforts. As we step into 2024, your continued support is vital. We are a non-profit that relies entirely on donations in order to support our community of brilliant scientists and technologists, pushing the boundaries of human capability. Your contribution would:
Progress our Foresight Fellowship, which is now in its sixth year. In 2023, we supported 78 Foresight fellows working to overcome crucial scientific bottlenecks. For 2024, we accepted 30% of applications, even though we felt more applicants were deserving. Next year, when we review our potential 2025 cohort, we would like to be able to accommodate more highly talented fellows in the face of an exploding application count and massive oversubscription of the program.
We would like to expand upon the support we currently offer our fellows. It would be great to present small in-house seed support to develop their projects, rather than just matchmaking our fellows with external funders.
We need to update the quality of our seminars, given that they have become a major virtual Schelling Point for our existing communities – enabling practitioners across the globe to stay up to date on new advances, find collaborators, and present their successes. This includes the entire pipeline, from onboarding leading presenters to seminar production and promotion.
In August 2023, we successfully established our first grant program for AI Safety, focusing on three underexplored categories – Neurotechnology for AI, AI Security, and Multipolar AI. We would like to grow the existing AI Safety Grant to be able to fund more worthy applicants, as well as offer grants within our other technology tracks.
Vision Weekend France: Highlights and Acknowledgements
Event Overview: The collaboration, innovative visions, and future-focused discussions made it a truly memorable event.
Gratitude to Sponsors: A special thank you to our sponsors for making this event possible! Chroma, Filecoin Foundation, AI Mission Control, Quadrascope, DeepGenomics, Schmidt Futures, Agoric, TomorrowBio, Ocean Protocol, VitaDAO, Molecule, LongevityTech.Fund, Special Competitive Studies Project, BioAge, and Deep Origin. We couldn’t have done it without you!
Appreciation for Contributors: Our heartfelt thanks to the speakers, fellows, and volunteers whose dedication made the event successful.
Panel Discussions: We’re proudly sharing insights from the panel discussions. These highlight current progress, bottlenecks, and future vision in each technical field. More to follow!
We’re looking forward to seeing you all at Vision Weekend USA this coming December 1st-3rd in the Bay Area!
We are completely amazed, as tickets have officially sold out; however, please join our waitlist if you’re eager to attend last minute.
Sponsorship tickets are still available, as this helps us support our community – such as enabling junior researchers to attend workshops on a subsidized ticket and travel our Foresight fellows to events to grow their careers.
Feynman Prize Winners 2023!
We’re thrilled to announce the 2023 Feynman Prize winners! These awards have been a longstanding part of Foresight Institute. Inaugurated in 1993, they honour those who have made significant strides in the field of Nanotechnology.
Professor Alexandre Tkatchenko was awarded his Feynman Prize during Vision Weekend France. Professor James J. Collins and Qiancheng Xiong will be awarded their prizes during an upcoming virtual ceremony and Vision Weekend USA, respectively.
The Feynman Prizes Inspired by the groundbreaking physicist Richard Feynman, these accolades recognize remarkable achievements in nanotechnology. From innovations in atomically precise manufacturing to game-changing nanosystems, the Feynman Prizes celebrate the best in the field. For a glimpse of the significance of these awards, look no further than 2016, when Sir J. Fraser Stoddart, a former Feynman Prize recipient, was honoured with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
2023 Feynman Prize Winners
Feynman Prize in Theory: Professor Alexandre Tkatchenko, University of Luxembourg
Feynman Prize in Experiment: Professor James J. Collins, MIT
Distinguished Student Award: Qiancheng Xiong, Yale University
This upcoming Wednesday, 6th December, we will be hosting a virtual prize ceremony for our Molecular Machines Group.
For more information about our 2023 winners, please see our press release. For more information on the Feynman Prizes and about nominating, please visit our website.
If you are interested in sponsoring either event in order to help junior researchers attend on a subsidized ticket or to help Foresight Fellows attend on a travel subsidy, please get in touch with [email protected]
Explore Transformative AI scenarios to identify and evaluate existing and potential future institutions for the beneficial development of AI!
Advancements in science, technology, and specifically AI are ushering us into an era filled with both extraordinary challenges and possibilities. While acknowledging the risks, we must also diligently work toward the AI futures we wish to achieve.
This hackathon will explore near-term Transformative AI scenarios to identify and evaluate existing and possible future institutions or coordination architectures for the safe and beneficial development of transformative AI technologies. Explore new opportunities, form lasting collaborations, and join us in driving cooperation toward shared long-term goals.
Uncover the emerging intersection of AI, cryptography & security and shape the future of human-AI cooperation.
To help AI development benefit humanity, Foresight Institute has held various workshops over the past years, such as AGI & Great Powers, AGI: Toward Cooperation, in addition to two technical meetings in 2022 and 2023 focusing on Cryptography, Security, and AI.
While these and other efforts have shed light on a diversity of promising projects to support, the intersection between the AI domain and the cryptography and security domain remains nascent but promising. This is why our 2024 workshop will invite leading researchers, entrepreneurs, and funders to collaborate across fields and explore tools and architectures that help humans and AIs cooperate.
2023 Whole Brain Emulation Workshop Report To the best of our understanding, there has not been a significant or comprehensive evaluation of Whole Brain Emulation since the 2008 publication of The Future of Humanity Institute’s Whole Brain Emulation Roadmap.
Given the recent acceleration in AI development, this workshop invited thirty researchers working in the fields of neuroscience, neurotechnology, AI, and AI Safety, to progress within Whole Brain Emulation’s implication for AI Safety. Some of the topics addressed BCIs, connectomics, lo-fi approaches to uploading, and preliminary experiments for Whole Brain Emulation feasibility.
Existential Hope Day 2023 Report This day brought together individuals from various fields to reflect upon and explore potential positive trajectories for our shared future. The discussions covered diverse topics, from the transformative potential of AI in learning and conflict resolution to the prospect of expanding human habitats beyond Earth. As these conversations unfolded, it became increasingly evident how essential it is to maintain a balanced approach towards our future—one that recognizes both risks and opportunities.
In line with this, our primary aim for this workshop was to provide a forum for enhancing our conceptual clarity of what positive futures may look like. This includes understanding the what, how, and why of various ideas to determine their relevance and potential impact. The discussions aimed to deepen our understanding of the term ‘Existential Hope’ and similar concepts, probe why these concepts might have been sidelined, and examine how they can inspire action.
2023 Longevity Frontiers Workshop Report As the longevity industry evolves, a multitude of intriguing avenues remain largely uncharted. These include aging biomarkers, the extracellular matrix, young plasma, epigenetic reprogramming, bioelectricity and aging, alongside machine-learning approaches for data processing.
We invited distinguished researchers, entrepreneurs, and funders to pinpoint areas of potential progress, followed by collaborative workgroups to probe into ways of fostering advancement in the identified sectors. Some of the topics addressed include the use of biomarkers in clinical trials, brain aging, partial reprogramming rebound, master aging regulators, and a longevity-focused AI atlas, among others. We were also honored to present the inaugural Longevity Hypothesis Prize to Carlos Galicia from the Buck Institute, whose proposal aims at leveraging embryogenesis’ rejuvenation processes for longevity.
2023 Intelligent Cooperation Workshop Report This workshop expanded on our 2022 workshop and other efforts to explore the role of cryptography and security in securing cooperation among humans and emerging AIs. It invited sixty researchers, engineers, and funders working on cryptography, security, and AI technologies to make progress on the following questions. Firstly, how can cryptography and security technologies help secure cooperation across humans? Secondly, how can these technologies be extended to secure cooperation across humans and emerging AIs?
From Starships to Tokens: Trent McConaghy on our Existential Hope Podcast
Join us as we discuss Trent’s comprehensive vision of AI integration. We explore strategies for environmentalism via climate-focused DAOs, Nature 2.0, and jurisdictional arbitrage; and consider the role of BCIs and UBI in human self-actualization. We also discuss his most ambitious goal for the future of humanity, which includes Dyson spheres and reshaping the cosmos.
Explore his vision of the future in this podcast episodeand through an AI artwork inspired by his hopeful vision.
November Fellowship Updates
Congratulations to Bill Halal, Professor Emeritus of Management, Technology, and Innovation at George Washington University, has published two incisive Op-Eds on AI.
David Manheim has written a paper discussing designing metrics. Topics covered include design considerations and processes; the presentation of specific strategies for mitigating perverse impacts; and continuing with important desiderata and tradeoffs involved with examples of how they can complement each other or differ.
The core claim can be summarised as follows: AI alignment must address the problem of (il)legitimate value change; that is, the problem of making sure AI systems neither cause value change illegitimately, nor forestall legitimate cases of value change in humans and society.
Thank you to all of our 2023 Fellows! We extend our heartfelt thanks to the 78+ distinguished fellows of our 2023 cohort of the Foresight Fellowship. Representing our technological tracks of Biotech, Nanotech, Space, Neurotech, Computation, and Existential Hope, our fellows have truly enriched our community.
We are thrilled about any continued collaborations and are proud to welcome all Fellows as valued Foresight alumni. Their contributions and insights have been instrumental in shaping a brighter future.
November Seminar Presentations
Here is a highlight reel of some of the fantastic presentations we had in our monthly seminar groups. Visit our seminar page to dive deeper.
Kevin Parkin, an accomplished physicist and engineer, is the driving force behind Parkin Research, a cutting-edge space technology company that is relentlessly pioneering tomorrow’s technologies to unlock the boundless potential of space exploration. Parkin Research is dedicated to dramatically reducing the prohibitive costs of rocket launches and making interstellar travel a tangible reality within a few short decades.
Michael Dubrovsky, Leon Peshkin, and Edouard Debonneuil present Home Blood Testing for Longevity Science and Self-experimentation. They give an overview of today’s and tomorrow’s home blood testing technology, and how we can leverage it to increase human healthspan and lifespan.
Gus Docker hosts The Future of Life Institute podcast, which features conversations with prominent researchers, policy experts, philosophers, and influential thinkers of all kinds. Gus studied philosophy and computer science at the University of Copenhagen and is active in Effective Altruism Denmark.
Dr. Scott Hubbard has been a leader in space exploration for almost 50 years. His career includes a National Lab, a start-up venture, NASA, and Stanford.
The Longevity Biotech Fellowship‘s mission is to enable a future where everyone can access a healthy, unlimited lifespan. This roadmap includes research, technology, and institutional innovations on the path to that post-aging future. It categorizes efforts into key strategies: Acceleration, Replacement, Bioengineering, Pharmacology, Cryostasis, and Longevity Lifestyle. They highlight underfunded areas like Replacement and Cryostasis.
Submit your application for the OpenCivics Genesis Round by November 15th. This opportunity is for civic innovation projects seeking to join a growing network of change-makers – utilize the Grants Portal for a guided application process. This is a unique opportunity for those interested in contributing to groundbreaking initiatives in governance, research, and more.
Can blockchain supply the guardrails to keep AI on course? – Andrew Singer, CoinTelegraph.
This article asks whether AI and blockchain be integrated in a way that benefits humanity, and features insights from Allison Duettmann on AI and blockchain integration.
This event will be held this upcoming December 4th, at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, California. This is a full-day, in-person event aimed at establishing a robust foundation for our collaborative longevity R&D efforts in order to augment human healthspan and lifespan. The key themes will be:
Conceptual frameworks and theories of aging and biomarkers of aging
Assessment and validation of biomarkers of aging
Application of biomarkers of aging for identification and evaluation of longevity interventions
Challenges and opportunities for establishing reliable biomarkers of aging
Holonym Foundation is conducting anthropological research at the intersection between global access to private digital identity and secure key auto-custody. They are seeking organizations and participants in a research survey to help us inform the next iteration of privacy tools and improved key custody UX.
This research is being done in collaboration with a project funded by the European Research Commission. More information can be found here.
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As an active part of our community of talented scientists and technologists who expand the limit of our civilization’s capabilities, you will be at the forefront of our research, and our intriguing network.
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