Future of Humanity Institute

FHI is a multidisciplinary research institute at the University of Oxford. Academics at FHI bring the tools of mathematics, philosophy and social sciences to bear on big-picture questions about humanity and its prospects. The Institute is led by Founding Director Professor Nick Bostrom.

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Occasional announcements from FHI.

Best Paper Award at the 1st International Workshop on Evaluating Progress in Artificial Intelligence – EPAI 2020

Carla Zoe Cremer (FHI Research Scholar) and Jess Whittlestone (Leverhulme CFI Senior Research Fellow) won the Best Paper Award at the 1st International Workshop on Evaluating Progress in Artificial Intelligence – EPAI 2020. The workshop was part of the 24th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence – ECAI 2020 Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Their paper, Canaries in Technology […]

Moral Uncertainty: Toby Ord Book Release

Very often we are uncertain about what we ought, morally, to do. How should we make decisions in the face of such uncertainty? Moral Uncertainty, new book by William MacAskill, Toby Ord & Krister Bykvist, tackles this question. https://tinyurl.com/y5vebafq Decision-making in the face of fundamental moral uncertainty is underexplored terrain: William MacAskill, Krister Bykvist, and […]

The Windfall Clause: Distributing the Benefits of AI

Over the long run, technology has improved the human condition. Nevertheless, the economic progress from technological innovation has not arrived equitably or smoothly. While innovation often produces great wealth, it has also often been disruptive to labor, society, and world order. In light of ongoing advances in artificial intelligence (“AI”), we should prepare for the […]

The New Yorker writes a profile on Toby Ord and The Precipice

Earlier this year Toby Ord, a Senior Research Fellow at FHI, published The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity. In The Precipice, Toby argues that safeguarding humanity’s future is among the most important moral issues of our time.  The New Yorker has recently written a profile on Toby Ord and The Precipice. You […]

FHI’s Research Scholars Programme – Applications Closed

The Future of Humanity Institute’s Research Scholars Programme is hiring a second cohort of research scholars, likely to start in Spring 2021. It is a selective, two-year research programme, with lots of latitude for exploration as well as significant training and support elements. We will offer around eight salaried positions to early-career researchers who aim […]

Next steps for departing research scholars

Next steps for departing research scholars FHI is delighted to announce where the first scholars to graduate from the Research Scholars Programme are going next. Of the ten scholars who are leaving this autumn, two do not wish to make their plans public yet, and eight have plans they’re happy to have mentioned publicly: Ashwin […]