Outreach work
The educational and communications wing of the FLI team.
Introduction
Informing the discourse around our cause areas.
The outreach team works to improve awareness, provide accurate and accessible information, and deepen understanding of our cause areas. Using evidence-based strategies of risk communication, we seek to emphasise positive steps by which extreme risks from transformative technologies can be reduced, and global prospects enhanced.
To these ends, we create informative content, operate dynamic social media accounts, collaborate with journalists, and run the Future of Life Award, celebrating unsung heroic individual efforts which made our world a better, safer place.
To these ends, we create informative content, operate dynamic social media accounts, collaborate with journalists, and run the Future of Life Award, celebrating unsung heroic individual efforts which made our world a better, safer place.
Our work
Outreach projects
Learn more about our ongoing projects:
Combatting Deepfakes
2024 is rapidly turning into the Year of Fake. As part of a growing coalition of concerned organizations, FLI is calling on lawmakers to take meaningful steps to disrupt the AI-driven deepfake supply chain.
Superintelligence Imagined Creative Contest
A contest for the best creative educational materials on superintelligence, its associated risks, and the implications of this technology for our world. 5 prizes at $10,000 each.
The Elders Letter on Existential Threats
The Elders, the Future of Life Institute and a diverse range of preeminent public figures are calling on world leaders to urgently address the ongoing harms and escalating risks of the climate crisis, pandemics, nuclear weapons, and ungoverned AI.
Educating about Lethal Autonomous Weapons
Military AI applications are rapidly expanding. We develop educational materials about how certain narrow classes of AI-powered weapons can harm national security and destabilize civilization, notably weapons where kill decisions are fully delegated to algorithms.
Artificial Escalation
Our fictional film depicts a world where artificial intelligence ('AI') is integrated into nuclear command, control and communications systems ('NC3') with terrifying results.
Worldbuilding Competition
The Future of Life Institute accepted entries from teams across the globe, to compete for a prize purse of up to $100,000 by designing visions of a plausible, aspirational future that includes strong artificial intelligence.
Future of Life Award
Every year, the Future of Life Award is given to one or more unsung heroes who have made a significant contribution to preserving the future of life.
Future of Life Institute Podcast
A podcast dedicated to hosting conversations with some of the world's leading thinkers and doers in the field of emerging technology and risk reduction. 140+ episodes since 2015, 4.8/5 stars on Apple Podcasts.
All our work
Our content
Featured videos
Here a few of the videos that we have produced ourselves, or in collaboration with other content creators:
Regulate AI Now
28 September, 2023
The AI Pause. What’s Next?
22 September, 2023
What nuclear war looks like from space
15 August, 2022
The Story of Nuclear Winter
6 August, 2022
These 8 People May Have Saved Your Life
25 July, 2022
Slaughterbots – if human: kill()
30 November, 2021
How To Solve Every Global Crisis
16 September, 2021
How We Saved the Ozone Layer
16 September, 2021
Slaughterbots
13 November, 2017
Myths and Facts About Superintelligent AI
29 August, 2017
Why You Should Care About Nukes
29 March, 2016
Our content
Achievements
Some of the things we have achieved
Here are a few of our proudest achievements in this area:
Celebrated 18 unsung heroes with Future of Life Awards
Every year since 2017, the Future of Life Award has celebrated the contributions of people who helped preserve the prospects of life.
See the award
Produced a viral video series raising the alarm on lethal autonomous weapons
We produced two short films, with a combined 75+ million views, depicting a world in which lethal autonomous weapons have been allowed to proliferate.
Watch the videos
Interviewed over 100+ key experts in our cause areas
Over the past 5 years, our team has hosted in-depth conversations with over 100+ leading figures in fields relating to our cause areas, all available for free on our podcast.
Listen to the podcast
Posts
Featured posts
Future of Life Institute Statement on the Pope’s G7 AI Speech
Max Tegmark provides a response to the Pope's remarks on autonomous weapons to G7 leaders.
18 June, 2024
Dr. Matthew Meselson Wins 2019 Future of Life Award
On April 9th, Dr. Matthew Meselson received the $50,000 Future of Life Award at a ceremony at the University of […]
9 April, 2019
$50,000 Award to Stanislav Petrov for helping avert WWIII – but US denies visa
Click here to see this page in other languages: German Russian To celebrate that today is not the 35th anniversary of […]
26 September, 2018
Our content
Podcasts
Featured podcasts
2 November, 2021
Rohin Shah on the State of AGI Safety Research in 2021
Play
1 October, 2021
Filippa Lentzos on Global Catastrophic Biological Risks
Play
7 September, 2021
James Manyika on Global Economic and Technological Trends
Play
22 January, 2021
Beatrice Fihn on the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
Play
All episodes
Resources
Featured resources
Women for the Future
In honor of Women's History Month, FLI presents 'Women for the Future': a celebration of the women who’ve made it their job to create a better world for us all. Ran in March 2019.
13 March, 2019
Trillion Dollar Nukes
Would you spend $1.2 trillion tax dollars on nuclear weapons? How much are nuclear weapons really worth? Is upgrading the […]
24 October, 2016
1100 Declassified U.S. Nuclear Targets
The National Security Archives recently published a declassified list of U.S. nuclear targets from 1956, which spanned 1,100 locations across Eastern Europe, Russia, China, and North Korea. The map below shows all 1,100 nuclear targets from that list, and we’ve partnered with NukeMap to demonstrate how catastrophic a nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia could be.
12 May, 2016
Accidental Nuclear War: a Timeline of Close Calls
The most devastating military threat arguably comes from a nuclear war started not intentionally but by accident or miscalculation. Accidental […]
23 February, 2016
Our content
Our team
Meet our outreach team
We're a 100% remote team spread all across the western hemisphere.
Contact us
Let's put you in touch with the right person.
We do our best to respond to all incoming queries within three business days. Our team is spread across the globe, so please be considerate and remember that the person you are contacting may not be in your timezone.
Please direct media requests and speaking invitations for Max Tegmark to press@futureoflife.org. All other inquiries can be sent to contact@futureoflife.org.