The Cosmos Institutea nonprofit organization whose founding members include Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark and former Department of Defense technologist Brendan McCord, has announced a enterprise capital program and research initiatives to, within the organization's words, “grow a brand new generation of technologists and entrepreneurs equipped with deep philosophical considering to navigate the uncharted territory of our AI era.”
In a Blog postMcCord, chairman of Cosmos, said the institute will establish an AI lab at Oxford University called the Human-Centered AI Lab, or “HAI Lab” for brief. It will probably be led by Oxford philosopher Philipp Koralus – one other founding member of the institute – and can aim to “translate the philosophical principles of human flourishing into open-source software and AI systems.”
What exactly does “implementing the philosophical principles of human flourishing” mean? Unclear. But the purpose is to encourage the event of AI technology that respects human dignity while avoiding harmful disruptions (e.g., automation that results in job losses). That's actually a high and nebulous bar—but one which the HAI Lab will strive to attain.
The institute can be establishing a fellowship – the Cosmos Fellowship – with an initial group of 4 fellows. Fellows will spend between “a semester and a yr” working on the HAI Lab or other partner institutions, collaborating with Cosmos mentors and pursuing independent projects to “explore the intersection of AI expertise and deep philosophical insights,” McCord said.
The institute's plans also include an investment component, which is able to take the shape of a enterprise organization: Cosmos Ventures. Led by former DeepMind product lead Jason Zhao, former Stripe strategy chief Alex Komoroske, Darren Zhu and Zoe Weinberg, Cosmos Ventures will support “provocative latest prototypes, essays and artistic projects that explore fundamental questions on the philosophy of technology,” McCord said.
McCord characterizes Cosmos Ventures as “low overhead,” and takes its cues from Emergent Ventures, run by Tyler Cowen, a fellow on the Institute. Investments range from $1,000 to $10,000 per project, and projects — latest or existing — must deliver a “big result” inside three months.
The first group has already been funded, McCord said.
The Cosmos Institute just isn’t the primary to attempt to push a more ethical, humanistic vision of AI. OpenAI, founded with the mission of bringing the advantages of advanced AI to all of humanity, has disbanded entire security teams. Clark's own company Anthropic once positioned itself as a safer, more ethical provider, but in the last months has resisted AI regulations and aggressively collected data without permission.
Perhaps the Cosmos Institute will do higher if it embraces what McCord calls “accelerationism”: the concept the long run just isn’t predetermined and that humanity is due to this fact chargeable for what it brings.
“We have to develop AI that inspires exploration, not complacency, but lively engagement relatively than passive dependence, especially in education, medicine, public life, and other necessary areas,” McCord writes. “We are committed to AI that decentralizes power and enables bottom-up solutions in order that individuals and communities can work together to create a richer and more diverse society.”
These are admirable positions. The reporter only hopes that cash, influence and power don’t make the temptation to present them up irresistible.
