How it works
Deadline: June 1st, 2024, or whenever we reach our match limit, whichever happens first.
How to get the match:
Who qualifies?
How much?
Don’t qualify but still want a match?
How to get the match:
- Donate to qualifying projects
- Fill out this form.
- We’ll match your donations, doubling the amount you gave.
Who qualifies?
- Any project tagged as “Pause/slowing down AI” on the Nonlinear Network.
- Donor has to be on the Nonlinear Network. It’s easy. It takes <2 minutes to sign up here. (Learn more about it here)
- Counterfactual donations.
- You have never donated to the project before OR
- You weren’t about to donate to the project soon (within the next few months). It’s an honor system. We trust you to not abuse the system.
How much?
- Up to $2,000 for any project tagged as “Pause/slowing down AI” per donor
- Up to $5,000 for some projects tagged as “Pause/slowing down AI” per donor based on our evaluation of their impact. We just don’t want to fund things that much if we’re not sold on their team and theory of change.
- Some projects we’ve already vetted enough to be comfortable giving up to $5k are:
- Pause AI
- Geoffrey Miller
- Guido Reichstadter
- Some projects we’ve already vetted enough to be comfortable giving up to $5k are:
- A single donor can give to multiple charities and we’ll match up to $2/5k per charity, even for a single donor.
- We’ll match up to $50k total for the unvetted projects. Up to $100k total for the vetted projects.
Don’t qualify but still want a match?
- Consider running your own match. If you run your own match, then you can double your donations as well. And you can make your own rules too, which is fun.
- We can help you run an AI safety match. We can help you design it and promote it. Just fill out this form or reach out to [email protected]
Why is Nonlinear doing this?
- It’s neglected. AI safety in general is neglected, and buying time is even more neglected. In part because many large donors avoid donating to this sort of thing because they’ve invested in the labs and so are limited in the sorts of things they can fund. There are also limits on what foundations can donate to compared to individuals, so there’s a comparative advantage for earning to givers in this area.
- It’s tractable. There's a long track record of humanity slowing down dangerous technologies. Also, there are very few players, so it’s much easier to coordinate than on something like, say, climate change.
- It’s important. Short timelines are alarmingly probable right now. If we live in a short timeline world, we are not even close to figuring out alignment yet. We need more time.
- Matches are great.
- Provides social proof that the cause is good. We’re putting our money where our mouth is.
- Adds a sense of urgency. We all know what happens when there’s something important in your life but there’s no particular rush to get to it. It’ll be forgotten about till the last minute. Providing a match adds a sense of urgency.
- To the funders who have a lot on their plates.
- To the charities who don’t like fundraising and need a little push sometimes.
- More donors giving to buying time interventions. We’ve designed our match to try to increase the odds that we get new donors giving to buying time.
- More donors → More robust ecosystem. We want to have a thriving ecosystem of charities, and that’s better when there’s a variety of donors, rather than a handful of big ones.
- We can help you run a match if you’d like. If you’re convinced that matches are a great way to make your donations go further, we can help you design it and promote it. Just fill out this form or reach out to [email protected]