Polaris
Focus Areas

Artificial intelligence

We believe that progress in AI could lead to a radical transformation of our society within the next century. We want to contribute positively to that development. In particular, we are interested in:
  • Cooperative AI. How can increasingly autonomous systems cooperate peacefully with one another?

Global priorities research

We think that our grants will have the highest impact if we focus on shaping the long-term course of civilization. However, it’s unclear what this implies in practice. We want to fund work that informs our prioritization. In particular, we are interested in:
  • Drivers of catastrophe. What sources of large-scale harm in the future should we focus on?
  • Crucial considerations. What are we missing when thinking about the long-term future? (e.g., related to infinite ethics, evidential cooperation)

Cooperative AI Foundation

We helped seed the Cooperative AI Foundation through our initial funding and a large financial commitment. Their mission is to support research that will improve the cooperative intelligence of advanced AI for the benefit of all.

Anthropic

As part of their Series A and Series B, we invested in Anthropic, an AI safety and research company. They are working on making large machine learning models more reliable, interpretable, and steerable.