Ten years ago Ryan Carrier was a failed hedge fund manager who watched as artificial intelligence systems began to spiral out of control. Facebook’s algorithms rocked the US election, Microsoft’s chatbot claimed the Holocaust was “made up,” and Tesla’s Autopilot killed its first driver. “There was no management, oversight or accountability,” Carrier says. To him, the AI-filled future awaiting his children looked bleak.
That same year, Carrier founded ForHumanity, a nonprofit that develops tools for auditing artificial intelligence systems. However, it has only raised hundreds of thousands of dollars since 2016 and is still a minor player in the industry. But that may soon change, as ForHumanity is now among the many nonprofits around the world that are trying to stop artificial intelligence, get animals out of cages, eliminate poverty and disease, and spread democracy that are eager to get a piece of what is widely considered to be the biggest wave of philanthropy in decades.
Two nearly trillion-dollar artificial intelligence companies, ChatGPT creator OpenAI and Claude Anthropic creator, are expected to go public soon, making hundreds of current and former employees extremely wealthy. Some of them follow a philosophy known as effective altruism, which encourages making impactful donations sooner rather than later.
The seven founders of Anthropic have committed to making a donation 80 percent of their assets, and the company agreed to pay an additional one or three shares for each amount its employees pledged, depending on when they joined and up to a certain limit.
Abrasive estimates a technology industry expert suggest that Anthropic’s initial public offering, which could occur in September, could result in additional philanthropic donations of $15 billion annually. That would be enough to boost total U.S. donations by about 2.5 percent a year – the same as adding four donations from Bill Gates, one of the world’s biggest donors. Anthropic declined to comment on the total amount its employees have donated and the organizations that may benefit.
All this money is not guaranteed. IPOs may be delayed or fail, and workers will cling to their assets. Industry observers also fear that the paralyzing number of charitable giving opportunities and natural variability could lead workers to keep more for themselves than expected.
However, competition for the attention of potential donors is already fierce. Jack Lewars, a consultant who last year advised 13 ultra-wealthy tech and finance workers on their charitable donations, says he has heard that artificial intelligence lab workers receive as many as 20 unsolicited emails a week from groups asking for donations.
WIRED spoke with 18 nonprofits and reached out to dozens more to ask how they are preparing for a potential windfall in the form of philanthropy. None of them admitted to sending harsh messages – a tactic Lewars uses on his modern blog: Anthropolypse of financing, he wrote “there are almost no job opportunities.” Instead, organizations say they are increasing staffing, training, marketing and the apply of automation to position themselves to attract huge sums of funds and deploy them quickly. One job advertisement at the educational nonprofit, he even prioritizes building relationships at Anthropic.
“Everyone will use these funds,” says Christine Peterson, co-founder of the grantmaking group Foresight Institute, which says it is funded by Anthropic employees. “It’s going to be a wild ride.”
Inner track
Like many nonprofit leaders who spoke to WIRED, ForHumanity’s Carrier says he’s more focused on the work itself than on fundraising. But he realizes it might be time for a change, and he’s started wondering how he can get to IPO nights in San Francisco. “I just need to get to that room,” Carrier says.
Bo Adolescent Lee, CEO of the nonprofit AI4ALL, says she’s attending more events, doing more research and asking board members like artificial intelligence scientist and entrepreneur Fei-Fei Li to introduce her to AI lab workers. Her organization trains juvenile adults across the United States to develop their own artificial intelligence models to diversify their technology workforce. Lee says he’s setting “ambitious” fundraising goals because he’s confident the money will come, even though introductory meetings haven’t been held yet.