Funder: Future of Life Institute
Due Dates (Anticipated): November 2027 (Application deadline)
Funding Amounts: Tuition and fees for 5 years, possible extension funding, $40,000 annual stipend at US/UK/Canadian universities, and $10,000 for research expenses
Summary: Supports PhD researchers analyzing AI existential risks and developing technical approaches to reduce them.
Key Information: Fellows must accept a compensation-donation obligation if they join certain AI companies within two years of completing the fellowship.
Description
The Vitalik Buterin PhD Fellowship in AI Existential Safety is run by the Future of Life Institute (FLI) in partnership with the Beneficial AI Foundation. It supports prospective PhD students planning to research AI existential safety and existing PhD students who would otherwise lack funding for this work. The program aims to strengthen the global talent pipeline and build a vibrant research community free from financial conflicts of interest.
The fellowship focuses on understanding how AI could cause catastrophes that permanently and drastically curtail humanity’s potential, including human extinction, and on technical research that could reduce these risks to extremely low levels. Relevant work includes identifying safety-critical technical problems, measuring properties associated with catastrophic risk, and developing interpretability, verification, safe objectives, analytical formalisms, cybersecurity protections, and benchmarks.
