A nonprofit R&D lab working to ensure that AI and future economic systems are built and deployed with genuine human objectives at their core, through research, open-source tools, and broad public input.
A nonprofit R&D lab working to ensure that AI and future economic systems are built and deployed with genuine human objectives at their core, through research, open-source tools, and broad public input.
People
Updated 05/18/26Co-founder, Vice President and Board Chair
Executive Director
Program Director, Talk to the City
Strategic Advisor and Program Co-Lead, AI Supply Chain Observatory
Program Lead, Moral Learning
Program Lead, AI Supply Chain Observatory
Funding Details
Updated 05/18/26- Annual Budget
- $1,829,928
- Current Runway
- -
- Funding Goal
- -
- Funding Raised to Date
- -
Org Details
Updated 05/18/26The AI Objectives Institute (AOI) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research and development lab founded in 2021 by the late Dr. Peter Eckersley and Brittney Gallagher. Peter Eckersley was an internet security pioneer known for his work at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and as a co-creator of Let's Encrypt. He conceived AOI as an institute focused on identifying and aligning the objectives of AI with those of society. After Eckersley's passing in September 2022, the organization continued under the leadership of Brittney Gallagher (Co-founder and Vice President), Deger Turan (President, also CEO of Metaculus), and Colleen McKenzie (Executive Director, former product manager at Google and Chief of Staff at Center for Humane Technology). AOI's research is organized around three pillars: sociotechnical alignment (developing governable AI systems and alternative paradigms), scalable coordination (improving collective deliberation and decision-making), and human autonomy (enhancing civilizational resilience and agency). The institute employs a strategy of differential technological development, advancing safety-enhancing progress while working to slow risk-increasing developments. The organization's flagship projects include Talk to the City (T3C), an open-source AI tool that enhances collective decision-making by analyzing democratic input while preserving the diversity of individual opinions. T3C has been deployed with Taiwan's Ministry of Digital Affairs for AI policy consultations, partnered with Search for Common Ground in Sub-Saharan Africa, and collaborated with the CMI Martti Ahtisaari Peace Foundation on youth political dialogue in Yemen. Other major projects include the Moral Learning project (funded by the John Templeton Foundation, led by Dr. Anna Leshinskaya), the AI Supply Chain Observatory (AISCO), and the Gradual Disempowerment Observatory. AOI is supported by the Survival and Flourishing Fund, the Future of Life Institute (which provided a $500,000 grant in 2023), the Foresight Institute, the Goodly Institute, and the John Templeton Foundation. The organization's board includes Tasha McCauley (technology entrepreneur, board member of Centre for the Governance of AI), Timothy Telleen-Lawton (former Head of Procurement for Anthropic), and Anders Sandberg (computational neuroscientist and philosopher, formerly of Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute). Advisors include David Dalrymple, Orowa Sikder (Anthropic), Brian Christian (author of The Alignment Problem), Max Wainwright (co-founder of Metaculus), and Aviv Ovadya (Harvard Berkman Klein Center). As of 2025-2026, AOI is actively contributing to the development of the EU's AI Act Codes of Practice, publishing research on AI governance through markets and gradual disempowerment risks, and expanding Talk to the City's international deployments. The team of approximately 15 staff members spans research, engineering, design, and operations, with additional board members and advisors.
Theory of Change
Updated 05/18/26AOI believes that improved governance capacity is essential to addressing existential risks from AI. Their theory of change rests on differential technological development: advancing safety-enhancing tools and frameworks while identifying and mitigating risk-increasing developments. They argue that the benefits of transformative AI require deliberate planning that goes beyond technical alignment to encompass sociotechnical systems, markets, and democratic institutions. By building practical open-source tools like Talk to the City that scale collective deliberation, conducting research on AI governance and market alignment, and developing frameworks for gradual disempowerment monitoring, AOI aims to ensure that human values and agency are preserved as AI systems become more capable and embedded in societal infrastructure.
Grants Received
Updated 05/18/26Projects
Updated 05/18/26Observatory project that uses data and AI tools to identify early warning indicators and root causes of harmful supply chain disruptions, while providing a platform for practitioners to share practices that strengthen resilience.
Research and monitoring initiative studying how advanced AI may gradually erode human agency across economic, political, and cultural systems, building shared measurement and coordination infrastructure to track these risks.
Research program investigating how AI agents can represent an individual human’s moral values and make aligned decisions in realistic, morally ambiguous scenarios by learning from human choices.
Discussion
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