What problem is the Center on Long-Term Risk working on?

The risks from the development and deployment of advanced AI systems pose a complex challenge. Because our resources are limited, CLR believes we need to prioritise and ask ourselves what actions we should take now to have as much of a positive impact as possible.

Some of the crucial considerations that inform CLR’s current priorities are:

Sufficiently advanced artificially intelligent systems are likely to shape the future of our civilization in uniquely profound ways.
This transformation may cause harm on an unprecedented scale, with agential risks like conflict and malevolence being particularly worrisome.
The chance that such systems will be developed in the next 30 years is sufficiently high to warrant action now.

What does the Center on Long-Term Risk do?

To address these risks, CLR:

Conducts interdisciplinary research to inform its priority areas.
Makes and recommends grants through its CLR Fund.
Builds a community of professionals and other researchers focused on this area through seminars, fellowships, and career coaching.

You can read more about CLR’s research agenda and its focus on transparency on its website.

What information does Giving What We Can have about the cost-effectiveness of the Center on Long-Term Risk?^1.

We don't currently have further information about the cost-effectiveness of the Center on Long-Term Risk beyond it doing work in a high-impact cause area and taking a reasonably promising approach.

Please note that GWWC does not evaluate individual charities. Our recommendations are based on the research of third-party, impact-focused charity evaluators our research team has found to be particularly well-suited to help donors do the most good per dollar, according to their recent evaluator investigations. Our other supported programs are those that align with our charitable purpose — they are working on a high-impact problem and take a reasonably promising approach (based on publicly-available information).

At Giving What We Can, we focus on the effectiveness of an organisation's work -- what the organisation is actually doing and whether their programs are making a big difference. Some others in the charity recommendation space focus instead on the ratio of admin costs to program spending, part of what we’ve termed the “overhead myth.” See why overhead isn’t the full story and learn more about our approach to charity evaluation.