Survival

We believe that unaligned AI poses the greatest risk to our world that has ever existed.

Dear reader,

We have preciously little time to steer the development of artificial intelligence so it doesn’t unintentionally or intentionally result in the extinction or disempowerment of all life as we know it. It’s so dangerous that we believe we ought to have paused all risky frontier AI development yesterday.

Upgradable has been in development through various iterations since at least 2007, always with the end goal of creating flourishing change agents capable of understanding and effectively tackling the world’s most pressing challenges.

Ensuring humanity’s survival is by far our most pressing challenge. Essentially everything we value relies on it. Happiness, connection, safety, power, status, money, pleasure, growth, and nearly everything else we consider important ought to be reevaluated in the context of the looming global catastrophe we’re currently facing.

Our team saw the risks from transformative technologies early. Our founder built his first proto-existential risk safety organization in high school and advocated for what became known as effective altruism (“EA”) years before it coalesced as a movement around 2011. In 2015, Upgradable co-founded and led Effective Altruism Global, which had Stuart Russell, Eliezer Yudkowsky, and Elon Musk warning us of the dangers to come. Our team also co-founded Effective Altruism Ventures and Singapore Futurists, and advised, consulted for, incubated or otherwise supported 50+ organizations in the broad space. 

Today millions of people seem to be taking the risk of near-term human extinction seriously. If you’re reading this and also feeling the fear, know you are not alone. Like Leo Szilard in the 1940s warning the world about nuclear weapons, our generation–meaning you and me–must warn the world of the risk we face from the newest batch of existentially risky technologies. Right now. There is no time to waste.

Upgradable is here to help you help. Both yourselves and others. It’s overwhelming to even seriously contemplate the risks, let alone do something about them. It takes clear thinking, deep focus, emotional fortitude, and the will to act to actually make a positive difference.

It helps enormously having a strategic plan outlining what you personally could do. That’s what UP is all about. We help you set that plan and, in some cases, execute it alongside you. Direct work in the field, donations or investments, lobbying, and raising awareness all help. As does being personally prepared and able to adapt your life to what’s coming next.

So if you are already or would like to work on mitigating existential risks from AI, synthetic biology, nuclear weapons or other new technologies, please consider letting us serve you. It would be an honor. Just book a free call.

Also see our sister organization, Collective Action for Existential Safety, for a list of 80+ actions you could take now to help. 

You’re all heroes, in our view. The world needs as many of you fighting for our survival as possible, in your own unique way. And let’s be honest, do any of us really have anything better to do?

We believe that if we make it through the next few harrowing years, we may just be able to create a world where everyone genuinely flourishes. With trillions of aligned AIs working on our behalf, there is very little we can’t accomplish. That’s a future worth fighting for.

Sincerely,

James