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Future of Humanity Institute
The Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) was an interdisciplinary research centre at the University of Oxford investigating big-picture questions about humanity and its prospects. It was founded in 2005 as part of the Faculty of Philosophy and the Oxford Martin School. Its director was philosopher Nick Bostrom, and its research staff included futurist Anders Sandberg and Giving What We Can founder Toby Ord.
Sharing an office and working closely with the Centre for Effective Altruism, the institute's stated objective was to focus research where it can make the greatest positive difference for humanity in the long term. It engaged in a mix of academic and outreach activities, seeking to promote informed discussion and public engagement in government, businesses, universities, and other organizations. The centre's largest research funders included Amlin, Elon Musk, the European Research Council, Future of Life Institute, and Leverhulme Trust.
On 16 April 2024 the University of Oxford closed the Institute, which said it had "faced increasing administrative headwinds within the Faculty of Philosophy".
Nick Bostrom established the institute in November 2005 as part of the Oxford Martin School, then the James Martin 21st Century School. Between 2008 and 2010, FHI hosted the Global Catastrophic Risks conference, wrote 22 academic journal articles, and published 34 chapters in academic volumes. FHI researchers have given policy advice at the World Economic Forum, to the private and non-profit sector (such as the Macarthur Foundation, and the World Health Organization), as well as to governmental bodies in Sweden, Singapore, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Bostrom and bioethicist Julian Savulescu also published the book Human Enhancement in March 2009. Most recently, FHI has focused on the dangers of advanced artificial intelligence (AI). In 2014, its researchers published several books on AI risk, including Stuart Armstrong's Smarter Than Us and Bostrom's Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies.
In 2018, Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of up to approximately £13.4 million to FHI over three years, with a large portion conditional on successful hiring.
The largest topic FHI has spent time exploring is global catastrophic risk, and in particular existential risk. In a 2002 paper, Bostrom defined an "existential risk" as one "where an adverse outcome would either annihilate Earth-originating intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential". This includes scenarios where humanity is not directly harmed, but it fails to colonize space and make use of the observable universe's available resources in humanly valuable projects, as discussed in Bostrom's 2003 paper, "Astronomical Waste: The Opportunity Cost of Delayed Technological Development".
Bostrom and Milan Ćirković's 2008 book Global Catastrophic Risks collects essays on a variety of such risks, both natural and anthropogenic. Possible catastrophic risks from nature include super-volcanism, impact events, and energetic astronomical events such as gamma-ray bursts, cosmic rays, solar flares, and supernovae. These dangers are characterized as relatively small and relatively well understood, though pandemics may be exceptions as a result of being more common, and of dovetailing with technological trends.
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Future of Humanity Institute
The Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) was an interdisciplinary research centre at the University of Oxford investigating big-picture questions about humanity and its prospects. It was founded in 2005 as part of the Faculty of Philosophy and the Oxford Martin School. Its director was philosopher Nick Bostrom, and its research staff included futurist Anders Sandberg and Giving What We Can founder Toby Ord.
Sharing an office and working closely with the Centre for Effective Altruism, the institute's stated objective was to focus research where it can make the greatest positive difference for humanity in the long term. It engaged in a mix of academic and outreach activities, seeking to promote informed discussion and public engagement in government, businesses, universities, and other organizations. The centre's largest research funders included Amlin, Elon Musk, the European Research Council, Future of Life Institute, and Leverhulme Trust.
On 16 April 2024 the University of Oxford closed the Institute, which said it had "faced increasing administrative headwinds within the Faculty of Philosophy".
Nick Bostrom established the institute in November 2005 as part of the Oxford Martin School, then the James Martin 21st Century School. Between 2008 and 2010, FHI hosted the Global Catastrophic Risks conference, wrote 22 academic journal articles, and published 34 chapters in academic volumes. FHI researchers have given policy advice at the World Economic Forum, to the private and non-profit sector (such as the Macarthur Foundation, and the World Health Organization), as well as to governmental bodies in Sweden, Singapore, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Bostrom and bioethicist Julian Savulescu also published the book Human Enhancement in March 2009. Most recently, FHI has focused on the dangers of advanced artificial intelligence (AI). In 2014, its researchers published several books on AI risk, including Stuart Armstrong's Smarter Than Us and Bostrom's Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies.
In 2018, Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of up to approximately £13.4 million to FHI over three years, with a large portion conditional on successful hiring.
The largest topic FHI has spent time exploring is global catastrophic risk, and in particular existential risk. In a 2002 paper, Bostrom defined an "existential risk" as one "where an adverse outcome would either annihilate Earth-originating intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential". This includes scenarios where humanity is not directly harmed, but it fails to colonize space and make use of the observable universe's available resources in humanly valuable projects, as discussed in Bostrom's 2003 paper, "Astronomical Waste: The Opportunity Cost of Delayed Technological Development".
Bostrom and Milan Ćirković's 2008 book Global Catastrophic Risks collects essays on a variety of such risks, both natural and anthropogenic. Possible catastrophic risks from nature include super-volcanism, impact events, and energetic astronomical events such as gamma-ray bursts, cosmic rays, solar flares, and supernovae. These dangers are characterized as relatively small and relatively well understood, though pandemics may be exceptions as a result of being more common, and of dovetailing with technological trends.
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