Future of Life Institute

The Future of Life Institute (FLI) helped connect safety research, public advocacy and funding in 2015. Its contemporary account describes organizing the January 2–5 Puerto Rico conference and developing the 2015 beneficial-AI open letter with a companion research agenda.^[1]

From agenda to research funding

FLI reports announcing 37 teams on July 1, 2015, awarded $7 million in its first AI safety grant round, funded by Elon Musk and the Open Philanthropy Project. This is an attributed account of awards, not independently audited expenditure or evidence that the projects solved alignment.^[1]

Its institutional role makes it relevant to alignment history: it convened interdisciplinary discussion, promoted a shared research appeal and supported work on that agenda. Evaluating the effects of its advocacy or grants requires evidence beyond its own retrospective. The beneficial-AI letter itself establishes what its signatories endorsed, without certifying the organization’s broader policy positions.^[2]

A separate military-use appeal

FLI also helped organize the 2015 autonomous-weapons open letter. Its original page assigns the institute hosting, signature verification and list-management roles; a July 29 report names Russell and Toby Walsh as the public announcers. This is a concrete institutional role in AI-use governance, distinct from the January beneficial-AI research appeal. Neither account establishes the campaign’s effectiveness or a signatory’s endorsement of FLI’s other positions.^[3][4]

A training-pause proposal in 2023

FLI published the 2023 pause letter on giant AI experiments, a further institutional role in public AI governance. Its hosted PDF separates the letter’s March 22 date from the PDF’s May 5 creation date. The appeal’s requested pause and safety review document a policy position; they do not establish compliance, effectiveness or scientific consensus.^[5]