Ought
ought.org · organization
Technical AI safety researchOther existential riskOtherAI governance, policy, and advocacy
- Received
- $9,696,577
- from 7 funders
- Grants
- 13
- Funders
- 7
- Years active
- 2018–23
Grants over time
Biggest funders
| FTX Future Fund | $5,000,000 | 52% | 1 |
| Coefficient Giving | $3,118,333 | 32% | 3 |
| Jaan Tallinn | $1,150,000 | 12% | 4 |
| Future of Life Institute | $358,000 | 4% | 1 |
| Long-Term Future Fund | $60,000 | 1% | 2 |
| Jalex Stark | $10,244 | 0% | 1 |
Biggest recipients
| Forecasting Research Institute | $100,000 | 100% | 1 |
Reviews
Matt Wage · Long-Term Future Fund · full post · Apr 23, 2019
$50,000
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We funded Ought in our last round of grants, and our reasoning for funding them in this round is largely the same. Additionally, we wanted to help Ought diversify its funding base because it currently receives almost all its funding from only two sources and is trying to change that.
Our comments from last round:
[Ought](https://ought.org/) is a nonprofit aiming to implement AI alignment concepts in real-world applications. We believe that Ought’s approach is interesting and worth trying, and that they have a strong team. Our understanding is that hiring is currently more of a bottleneck for them than funding, so we are only making a small grant. Part of the aim of the grant is to show Ought as an example of the type of organization we are likely to fund in the future.
Long-Term Future Fund · full post · Dec 2, 2018
USD 10,000
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Ought is a nonprofit aiming to implement AI alignment concepts in real-world applications. We believe that Ought's approach is interesting and worth trying, and that they have a strong team. Our understanding is that hiring is currently more of a bottleneck for them than funding, so we are only making a small grant. Part of the aim of the grant is to show Ought as an example of the type of organization we are likely to fund in the future.
Grants received
| Date ↓ | Funder | Via | Amount | Cause | Source | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 28, 2023 | Jaan Tallinn | Survival and Flourishing Fund | $358,000 | Alignment methods | sff | General Support |
| 2023 | Future of Life Institute | $358,000 | Other existential risk | fli | General support for mechanisms delegating reasoning to ML systems. — 2023 Grants (Existential Risk Reduction / Institutional Grants) | |
| 2022 | FTX Future Fund | $5,000,000 | Technical AI safety research | ftx_future_fund | This regrant will support Ought ’s work building Elicit , a language-model based research assistant. This work contributes to research on reducing alignment risk through scaling human supervision via process-based systems . — Artificial Intelligence | |
| Nov 20, 2021 | Jaan Tallinn | Survival and Flourishing Fund | $542,000 | Alignment methods | sff | General Support |
| Jan 2020 | Coefficient Giving | $1,593,333 | Alignment methods | coefficient_giving | General Support | |
| Dec 4, 2019 | Jaan Tallinn | Tallinn Community Fund | $150,000 | Other | jaan_online | General support |
| Dec 2019 | Jaan Tallinn | Survival and Flourishing Fund | $100,000 | Alignment methods | sff | General Support |
| Nov 2019 | Coefficient Giving | $1,000,000 | Alignment methods | coefficient_giving | General Support | |
| Apr 2019 | Long-Term Future Fund | EA Funds | $50,000 | AI governance, policy, and advocacy | ea_funds | Unrestricted donation |
| 2019 | Jalex Stark | $10,244 | Technical AI safety research | vipul_donations | The donor quotes the donee's self-description: "Ought is a research lab that develops mechanisms for delegating open-ended thinking to advanced machine learning systems. We study this delegation problem using experiments with human participants." | |
| Oct 2018 | Long-Term Future Fund | EA Funds | $10,000 | AI governance, policy, and advocacy | ea_funds | Aiming to implement AI alignment concepts in real-world applications |
| May 2018 | Coefficient Giving | $525,000 | Alignment methods | coefficient_giving | General Support | |
| — | Longview Philanthropy | — | Technical AI safety research | longview | Featured grant (no amount published; featured since at least Jan 2021, re-listed July 2022): research on factored cognition and AI alignment. — Longview advised/recommended grant (AI) |
Grants made 1 · $100,000 · $100,000 average
| Date ↓ | Recipient | Via | Amount | Cause | Source | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Forecasting Research Institute | $100,000 | Strategy & forecasting | org_reported | April 2026: $100,000 USD, general support |