Problem: There are tens of thousands of people working full time to make AI powerful, but around 300 working to make AI safe.
This needs to change.
AI safety is held back by two bottlenecks:
Solution: We need more charities to deploy funding and create jobs.
Our goal is to 10x the number of talented people working on x-risk by launching dozens of high impact charities. This helps solve the bottlenecks because entrepreneurs “unlock” latent EA talent - if one person starts an organization that employs 100 people who weren’t previously working on AI safety, that doubles the number of people working on the problem.
Our process:
This needs to change.
AI safety is held back by two bottlenecks:
- Lots of funding, but few charities to deploy it.
- Lots of talent, but few charities creating jobs.
Solution: We need more charities to deploy funding and create jobs.
Our goal is to 10x the number of talented people working on x-risk by launching dozens of high impact charities. This helps solve the bottlenecks because entrepreneurs “unlock” latent EA talent - if one person starts an organization that employs 100 people who weren’t previously working on AI safety, that doubles the number of people working on the problem.
Our process:
- Research the highest leverage ideas
- Find the right founders
- Connect them with mentors and funding
A few projects we’ve incubated so far:
- The Nonlinear Network: Funders get access to AI safety deal flow similar to large EA funders. People working in AI safety can apply to >60 AI safety funders in one application.
- The Nonlinear Library: Listen to top EA content on your podcast player. We use text-to-speech software to create an automatically updating repository of audio content from the EA Forum, Alignment Forum, and LessWrong. You can find it on all major podcast players here.
- Superlinear: Prize competitions for Effective Altruists.
- EA Houses: Airbnb for EA, or "renting to give".
- EA writing services: Hire somebody to turn your ideas into a polished post on the EA Forum or LessWrong.
- Nonlinear Emergency Fund: Fast grants for charities affected by the FTX crisis.
- Entrepreneur Coaching: We provide free coaching to charity entrepreneurs in the AI safety space. Apply here.
- Entrepreneur Career Advice: Considering starting an org in AI safety? Apply for career advice here.
- The Nonlinear Support Fund (no longer accepting applications): Mental health and productivity grants if you work full-time in AI safety.