Allan Dafoe

This paper outlines four different notions of “AI democratisation”, three of which are used almost synonymously with “increasing accessibility”. The democratisation of AI use and the democratisation of AI development are about...

This web app is a tool for exploring the dynamics of risky AI competition: the safety-performance tradeoff. Will AI safety breakthroughs always lead to safer AI systems? Before long, we may be capable of creating AI systems...

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are shaping modern life, from transportation, health care, science, finance, to the military. Forecasts of AI development could help improve policy- and decision making. We report...

The great powers appear to be entering an era of heightened competition to master security-relevant technologies in areas such as AI. This is concerning because deploying new technologies can create substantial...

Preferences for conflict and cooperation are systematically different for men and women: across a variety of contexts, women generally prefer more peaceful options and are less supportive of making threats and initiating...

A large literature has argued that offensive advantage makes states worse off because it can induce a security dilemma, preemption, costly conflict, and arms races. We argue instead that state welfare is u-shaped under...

Much AI governance work involves preparation for a constitutional moment: an opportunity to create long-lasting, decision-shaping, institutions. Doing this well is a formidable task. It requires a fine balance. Institutions...

Countries, companies, and universities are increasingly competing over top-tier artificial intelligence (AI) researchers. Where are these researchers likely to immigrate and what affects their immigration decisions? We...

Machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) researchers play an important role in the ethics and governance of AI, including taking action against what they perceive to be unethical uses of AI...

What resources and technologies are strategic? Policy and theoretical debates often focus on this question, since the “strategic” designation yields valuable resources and elevated attention. The ambiguity of the very concept...

Major theories of military innovation focus on relatively narrow technological developments, such as nuclear weapons or aircraft carriers. Arguably the most profound military implications of technological change, however, come...

What makes coercion succeed? For most international relations scholars, the answer is credible threats. Yet scholars have neglected a second key component of successful coercion: credible assurances. This article makes two...

Threats and force, by increasing expected costs, should reduce the target’s resolve. However, they often seem to increase resolve. We label this phenomenon provocation. We review instances of apparent provocation in interstate...

Reputations for resolve are said to be one of the few things worth fighting for, yet they remain inadequately understood. Discussions of reputation focus almost exclusively on first-order belief change—A stands firm, B updates...

To help humanity solve fundamental problems of cooperation, scientists need to reconceive artificial intelligence as deeply social. Artificial-intelligence assistants and recommendation algorithms interact with billions of peop...

Governments around the world are busy talking about the critical next steps — how to keep people safe from the coronavirus as economies start to reopen. In the United States and in Europe, this involves officials looking at how...

This report was written by researchers at the Future of Humanity Institute, the Center for the Study of Existential Risk, OpenAI, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for a New American S...