Lightcone Infrastructure

Berkeley, CA, USA

https://www.lightconeinfrastructure.com/

Actively Fundraisingestablished8 peopleFounded 2021

Endorsed by:

Donate:Every.org·Every.org (2026 Fundraiser)·Manifund·Direct

Lightcone Infrastructure is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that builds technology, community infrastructure, and physical spaces to help people working on humanity's long-term future. The organization runs LessWrong.com, the premier online forum for rationality and AI alignment research discourse, and the AI Alignment Forum. It also operates Lighthaven, a 30,000 sq. ft. campus in downtown Berkeley that hosts conferences, research programs, and events at the intersection of AI safety, forecasting, and intellectual culture. Lightcone additionally runs Lightspeed Grants, a rapid-turnaround grantmaking program for projects reducing existential risk, and co-built the infrastructure behind the Survival and Flourishing Fund's grant allocation process.

Funding Details

Annual Budget: $5,300,000
Monthly Burn Rate: $442,000
Current Runway: -
Funding Goal: $3,000,000
Funding Raised to Date: -
Fiscal Sponsor: -

Theory of Change

Lightcone Infrastructure believes that this century is a critical period for humanity, particularly due to the development of advanced AI, and that building strong epistemic infrastructure is essential to navigating it well. Their theory of change operates across three channels. First, by maintaining LessWrong and the AI Alignment Forum, they provide the primary intellectual commons where AI safety ideas are developed, stress-tested, and disseminated, serving as a key upstream driver of alignment research. Second, through Lighthaven they create physical spaces where researchers, forecasters, and thinkers can collaborate intensively, hosting programs and conferences that catalyze new research directions and build community ties. Third, through grantmaking infrastructure like Lightspeed Grants and their work with the Survival and Flourishing Fund, they help allocate philanthropic capital more effectively toward reducing existential risk. They take an active leadership role in the rationality and AI safety communities, working to identify and fix bad incentives, promote clear thinking among key decision-makers, and take responsibility for the end-to-end effectiveness of these communities.