Where is will invest $1bn
The OpenAI foundation recently shared its strategy to invest at least $1bn
They will focus on four areas: Life sciences and curing diseases, Jobs and economic impact, AI resilience and Community‑based initiatives
LIFE SCIENCES AND CURING DISEASES
A belief that AI can significantly speed up scientific discovery and medical progress. Including:
→ AI for Alzheimer’s disease: to map disease pathways, identify biomarkers, personalize treatment, and potentially repurpose existing FDA‑approved drugs.
→ Public data for health, The creation and responsible sharing of high‑quality open scientific datasets so researchers worldwide can leverage AI.
→ High‑mortality and high‑burden diseases, particularly underfunded areas where AI could reduce the cost, time, and risk of developing therapies.
JOBS AND ECONOMIC IMPACT
AI will significantly reshape work and the economy, the Foundation will engage with "workers, small businesses, unions, economists, policymakers, and civil society groups". It plans to fund practical solutions that help people adapt to AI‑driven economic change.
AI RESILIENCE
Managing the societal risks of advanced AI so people can safely benefit from it. Including
→ AI’s impact on children and youth. Research and safeguards for safe and healthy use.
→ Biosecurity, improving prevention and response to biological threats, including those enabled by AI
→ AI model safety including independent evaluations, stronger industry standards, and foundational safety research.
SUPPORTING COMMUNITIES
The Foundation will continue funding community‑based organizations that help people understand AI, access its benefits, and adapt to change.
What’s Next?
The Foundation emphasizes that their work is just beginning.
Its goal is to learn quickly, work closely with partners, and invest in scalable efforts that help people solve hard problems, improve health and wellbeing, and build more fulfilling lives as AI capabilities grow.
SOURCE
See more : https://openai.com/index/update-on-the-openai-foundation/
BeSci AI OPINION
This feels a bit icky to me. I get that it is good to support, invest and use AI to help humans overcome diseases and stay alive longer. That is laudable.
The Jobs and Economic Impact agenda feels more like a political move.
To avoid or mitigate the risk that governments will tax the AI providers to pay the social security and health costs of those who are displaced by, guess what, AI.
If they find alternative roles that people can do there is less unemployment, less drain on social security and the AI providers still profit.
A defensive strategy of 'if we do less harm, you won't feel the need to legislate or tax us'.
The AI resilience agenda plays into the fears that Frontier AI providers have about being sued, for damaging children and young adults, or the ease and ability to create weapons (e.g. bio weapons) based on the helpfulness of their AI platform.
The AI in communities sounds like a way of recruiting more people who will become reliant on the AI platforms the providers have.
One out of four is laudable, the rest is damage limitation, which is sad.
The potential for good is huge. Why not use it.
