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You’re the product of 8,000 generations of humans. You were born into the civilization they built, with all its magic, beauty and flaws. Their decisions shape every aspect of our world.

We’re only the latest generation of humans, but we’re living through one of the most significant technological transformation in the history of the universe.

Our decisions today will have an immense impact on our own future, and the future of all our descendants.

We may still be early in humanity’s story. We have an amazing opportunity to steer this story towards wonder, greatness and kindness. But that's not guaranteed.

In this unit, you’ll visualise a future to aspire towards, you’ll explore how AI is shaping that future, and you’ll analyse the dilemmas and coordination failures we must overcome to steer towards a better future.

Throughout the rest of the course, you will:
- analyse the technical trends of AI progress and what this implies for future AI capabilities,
- develop a step-by-step story (”kill chain”) for how those capabilities could cause harm to humanity,
- apply a “defence in depth” framework to analyse what needs to be built to defend against your kill chain and steer AI towards safe and beneficial outcomes,
- conduct a shallow investigation into a prioritised intervention to understand what successful implementation looks like and what challenges must be overcome,
- write a synthesis memo of all that you’ve learnt during this course, and generate an action plan for how you’ll contribute to making AI go well.


Imagining a better future

What future do you want?

In so many ways, human lives have been transformed in the past few centuries. In many ways, perhaps most, it’s been for the better. However, there’s a huge amount of work left to be done to steer our future towards wiser, kinder, happier outcomes.

How old are you? Add 20 years to that number. Imagine a week in your life when you’re that years old, where you’re living a good, happy life. Consider going for a short walk to reflect on this. Then write down your thoughts below.


What does a better future for yourself look like? 

Over the next 20 years, we will welcome 2.7 billion new humans to our global community, and 1.5 billion will pass away.

If you felt pride in welcoming these new humans into our world, what would the world look like? Consider factors like politics, the economy, the social order and community, technological progress, and the environment. 


What does a better future look like for society? 

You've just imagined futures worth protecting. But those futures aren't guaranteed - they depend in part on the decisions being made right now by the people racing to build AGI, who often have incentives that push away from thoughtful development.

Here, you’ll learn more about the actors shaping the future of AI, including their goals and constraints.


Steering the race to AGI

The characters

Choose **one** character from [this list](https://bluedot-impact.notion.site/agi-strategy-character-cards?source=copy_link), and read their character card. 

If you're completing this course with a group, post in Slack which character you selected.

Write down 2-3 paragraphs below describing your character's main motivations, capabilities, and external pressures/constraints.

Note that these cards are illustrative - they do NOT capture the true complexity of these characters.


AGI Strategy

Imagining a better future

Resources (50 mins)