BERI-FHI Collaboration

The BERI-FHI Collaboration was a formal partnership between the Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative (BERI), a US-based 501(c)(3) public charity, and the Future of Humanity Institute (FHI), an interdisciplinary research center at the University of Oxford. FHI was one of BERI's first three university collaborators, established around the time of BERI's founding in 2017, alongside the Center for Human-Compatible AI (CHAI) at UC Berkeley and the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) at Cambridge. BERI's core model was to act as a multiplier on the efficiency and impact of university research groups working on existential risk, by providing services and support that would be difficult to arrange through standard university channels. For the FHI collaboration specifically, BERI hired contractors to provide research assistance to the Governance of AI Program, operations and management assistance, copy-editing for researchers, and LaTeX drafting for technical reports. The collaboration supported several important research efforts. Robert Trager's early work on AI governance was facilitated through BERI's support, as was Owain Evans' research on Truthful AI. During the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, the collaboration also enabled rapid development of forecasting and evaluation methods for nonpharmaceutical interventions. Funding for the collaboration came through several channels. The Survival and Flourishing Fund recommended $478,000 from Jaan Tallinn for general support of the BERI-FHI Collaboration in its 2021 H1 round. Additional smaller grants were recommended from Jed McCaleb for support of the Centre for the Governance of AI at FHI. The collaboration came to an end following the University of Oxford's decision to shut down FHI on April 16, 2024. BERI began winding down its existing commitments to FHI researchers, with the last commitment ending on May 5, 2024. BERI's deputy director Sawyer Bernath noted pride in what the collaboration accomplished, describing the end as a consequence of institutional closure rather than any disagreement between the partners.

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Start Date

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End Date

May 5, 2024

Expected Duration

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Funding Raised to Date

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