The Canary Institute: AI Policy Research & Public Advocacy
Artificial intelligence is predicted to cause vast disruption to the global economy, with both transformative benefits and serious risks. The people who built this technology are warning that without deliberate intervention, the negative consequences could be severe and irreversible. The Canary Institute exists to make sure those warnings are heard, understood, and acted upon.
The Warning
“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”
In Their Own Words
“We have no experience of what it’s like to have things smarter than us. … We’re entering a period of great uncertainty, where we’re dealing with things we’ve never dealt with before.”
“It is difficult to go against your own church, but if you think rationally about things, there’s no way to deny the possibility of catastrophic outcomes. … It was thinking about my children and their future that made me decide I had to act differently.”
“There is also a longer-term existential threat that will arise when we create digital beings that are more intelligent than ourselves. We have no idea whether we can stay in control.”
“We don’t have methods to make sure that these systems will not harm people or will not turn against people. We don’t know how to do that.”
Among those who have publicly warned of catastrophic AI risk
Geoffrey Hinton · Yoshua Bengio · Stuart Russell · Demis Hassabis · Sam Altman · Dario Amodei · Bill Gates · Ilya Sutskever · Dawn Song · Daniel Kahneman · Daniel Dennett · Yuval Noah Harari
Our Mission
The Canary Institute is an independent, non-partisan, not-for-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that the development of advanced artificial intelligence proceeds safely and in the public interest. We exist because the gap between what AI researchers know and what the public understands has grown too wide, and the gap between what policymakers need and what they receive has grown too dangerous.
We are not opposed to artificial intelligence. We are opposed to negligence. When the people building the aircraft say the wings might come off, it is not alarmism to call for an inspection. It is common sense.
What We Do
We analyze where AI capabilities are headed and where they'll land first economically. We translate that analysis for non-specialists, without sensationalism and without false reassurance. We bring what we find to policymakers.
We serve no corporate interest. We take no position on partisan questions. Our work exists to make sure humanity keeps meaningful control of a technology whose architects are warning we might lose it.
Technical Briefings
If your office is making decisions about AI and wants a technical read from someone with no commercial interest in the outcome, we'll do a briefing. No charge. We tune the depth to whoever is in the room.
To set one up, write briefings@canaryinstitute.ai