The Future of Life Institute is calling for proposals for research evaluating in detail how artificial intelligence (AI) has so far impacted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) relating to poverty, healthcare, energy and climate change, and how it can be expected to impact them in the near future. This research can examine either cases where AI is intended to address respective SDGs directly, or where AI has affected the realisation of these goals by its side effects. Each paper should select one SDG or target, analyse the impact of AI on its realisation up to the present, and explore the ways in which AI could accelerate, inhibit, or prove irrelevant to, the achievement of that goal by 2030.
FLI is calling for research proposals with the aim of designing trustworthy global governance mechanisms or institutions that can help stabilise a future with 0, 1, or more centralised AGI projects. These proposals should outline the specifications needed to reach or preserve a secure world, taking into account the myriad threats posed by advanced AI. Moreover, we expect proposals to specify and justify whether global stability is achieved by banning the creation of all AGIs, enabling just one AGI system and using it to prevent the creation of more, or creating several systems to improve global stability. In that sense, as well as pitching a particular control mechanism, each proposal is also making a case for how humanity is kept safe in a specific future scenario.