It looks like there are some good funding opportunities in AI safety right now

![](https://80000hours.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/1203081_07-1800x1030.jpg)© 2012 CERN Maximilien Brice

_This post was written by Benjamin Todd in his personal capacity and originally posted on [benjamintodd.substack.com](https://benjamintodd.substack.com/)._

The AI safety community has grown rapidly since the ChatGPT wake-up call, but available funding doesn’t seem to have kept pace.

However, there’s a more recent dynamic that’s created even better funding opportunities, which I witnessed as a recommender in the most [recent Survival and Flourishing Fund grant round](https://survivalandflourishing.fund/sff-2024-recommendations). [1](https://80000hours.org/2025/01/it-looks-like-there-are-some-good-funding-opportunities-in-ai-safety-right-now/#fn-1 "")

Most philanthropic (vs. government or industry) AI safety funding (>50%) comes from one source: Good Ventures, via Open Philanthropy. [2](https://80000hours.org/2025/01/it-looks-like-there-are-some-good-funding-opportunities-in-ai-safety-right-now/#fn-2 "") But they’ve [recently stopped funding](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/foQPogaBeNKdocYvF/linkpost-an-update-from-good-ventures) several categories of work (my own categories, not theirs):

- Many Republican-leaning think tanks, such as the [Foundation for American Innovation](https://www.thefai.org/)
- “ [Post-alignment](https://www.cold-takes.com/transformative-ai-issues-not-just-misalignment-an-overview/)” causes such as [digital sentience](https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/moral-status-digital-minds/) or [regulation of explosive growth](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/TeBBvwQH7KFwLT7w5/william_macaskill-s-shortform)
- The rationality community, including [LessWrong](https://www.lesswrong.com/), [Lightcone](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5n2ZQcbc7r4R8mvqc/the-lightcone-is-nothing-without-its-people), [SPARC](https://www.sparc.camp/), [CFAR](https://www.rationality.org/), [MIRI](https://intelligence.org/)
- High school outreach, such as [Non-Trivial](https://www.non-trivial.org/)

In addition, they are currently not funding (or not fully funding):

- Many non-US think tanks, who don’t want to appear influenced by an American organisation (there’s now probably more than 20 of these)
- They do fund technical safety non-profits like [FAR AI](https://far.ai/), though they’re probably underfunding this area, in part due to difficulty hiring for this area the last few years (though they’ve hired recently)
- Political campaigns, since foundations can’t contribute to them
- Organisations they’ve decided are below their funding bar for whatever reason (e.g. most agent foundations work). Open Philanthropy is not infallible so some of these might still be worth funding.
- [Nuclear security](https://benjamintodd.substack.com/p/for-the-love-of-god-can-we-find-a), since it’s on average less cost-effective than direct AI funding, so isn’t one of the official cause areas (though I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some good 

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