Intelligence Rising is a strategic AI futures roleplay simulation that lets decision-makers experience the tensions and risks of competitive AI development. It is a project of Technology Strategy Roleplay, a UK registered charity.
Intelligence Rising is a strategic AI futures roleplay simulation that lets decision-makers experience the tensions and risks of competitive AI development. It is a project of Technology Strategy Roleplay, a UK registered charity.
People
Updated 05/18/26Game Design and Research Lead @ Intelligence Rising / Technology Strategy Roleplay
Training and Pedagogy Lead @ Intelligence Rising / Technology Strategy Roleplay
Trustee @ Technology Strategy Roleplay (TSR)
Trustee @ Technology Strategy Roleplay (TSR)
Chief Operating Officer @ Technology Strategy Roleplay (TSR), UK
Founder & Trustee @ Technology Strategy Roleplay (TSR)
Game Design and Research Associate @ Intelligence Rising
Senior Game Design Associate @ Intelligence Rising
Funding Details
Updated 05/18/26- Annual Budget
- $306,497
- Current Runway
- -
- Funding Goal
- -
- Funding Raised to Date
- -
Org Details
Updated 05/18/26Intelligence Rising is a strategic AI futures simulation and training workshop designed to help current and future decision-makers understand the risks and dynamics of competitive AI development. Participants embody characters such as elected officials and their AI advisors in major states, and CEOs and their executive teams at leading technology firms, attempting to emulate how these actors might behave over a simulated decade of AI progress and exploring the implications of their choices. The project was originally conceived by Dr. Shahar Avin at the University of Cambridge's Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER), inspired by a 3-person AI futures roleplay he participated in at the Future of Humanity Institute in 2017. Initial development was funded by a grant from the Long-Term Future Fund in 2019, and the project began generating revenue through paid workshops in 2021. The simulation was developed by researchers from the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, and Wichita State, alongside non-academic collaborators. In 2022, the project was formally incorporated as Technology Strategy Roleplay (TSR), a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) registered in England and Wales (charity number 1200928). TSR serves as the parent organization for Intelligence Rising and deploys the simulation across academia, civil society, government, and industry in the EU, US, and UK. The core staff includes Sanjana Kashyap as Chief Operating Officer, Eran Aviram as Senior Game Designer, and Dayna Cabrera as Operations Associate. The facilitation team draws on practitioners and researchers affiliated with institutions such as Cambridge University, the UK AI Security Institute, Oxford, and Wichita State University. An independent evaluation by the University of Cambridge (2020-2023) found that 84% of participants would recommend Intelligence Rising after playing. For the financial year ending April 2025, Technology Strategy Roleplay reported total income of £306,497 and total expenditure of £220,105. Revenue is generated primarily through fees for facilitated workshops with clients across government, AI labs, industry, academia, NGOs, think tanks, and student programs.
Theory of Change
Updated 05/18/26Intelligence Rising operates on the theory that realistic experiential simulation is an effective way to build genuine understanding of AI risk dynamics among key decision-makers. By placing participants in roles as government officials and AI company executives navigating competitive AI development over a simulated decade, the workshop creates a felt sense of the coordination failures, race dynamics, and critical decision junctures that could lead to unsafe outcomes. Participants who have experienced these dynamics firsthand are expected to be better equipped to advocate for safety-conscious policies, support international coordination mechanisms, and make more informed decisions in their real-world roles. The causal chain runs from simulation experience to improved mental models of AI risk, to changed behavior and advocacy by influential actors in government, industry, and civil society.
Grants Received– no grants recorded
Updated 05/18/26Projects
Updated 05/18/26
A UK charity that develops and deploys Intelligence Rising, a strategic role-playing game designed to help decision-makers understand the risks, tensions, and governance challenges of AI development through facilitated wargaming exercises.
Discussion
Key risk: The main concern is weak external-validity/measurement of lasting behavior change among truly high-leverage actors, compounded by a small facilitation-dependent team and fee-based demand that limit throughput and make the counterfactual value of philanthropic funding uncertain.
Case for funding: Intelligence Rising can scale a realistic, multi-stakeholder AI race/coordination simulation—already used by government, labs, and think tanks and distilled in their 2024 insights paper—that upgrades decision-makers’ mental models in ways reports cannot, increasing the odds of safety-conscious policy and cross-actor coordination.