Technical trends driving AI progress

Intelligence Explosion

Will AI progress accelerate even faster?

Map the threat landscape

Prioritising threat pathways

Option 1: Power concentration

Option 2: Gradual disempowerment

Option 3: Catastrophic pandemics

Option 4: Critical infrastructure collapse

Imagining a better future

What future do you want?

Steering the race to AGI

The characters

What might success look like?

Layer 1: Prevent dangerous AI training

Layer 2: Constrain dangerous AI capabilities

Layer 3: Withstand dangerous AI actions

Building defences

Choose your focus

Go deep in one area

Make a plan

Optional advice

Next steps: Deeper-dive courses

Thank you!

In the last unit, we explored what defences need to be built in order to defend against AI harms.

Very few people in the world are trying to steer the development of AGI towards beneficial outcomes for humanity. We estimate it’s less than 2,000 full-time people!

You could be one of the few people making a difference, but doing so requires stepping up, taking responsibility, and trying to solve new problems that don’t have an instruction manual.

In this unit, you'll create an action plan for how you could start contributing. This is only the beginning - you're not expected to have a perfect answer right now. 


Based on everything you've learnt about so far during this course, prioritise an intervention from the long list. 

To help you prioritise, consider which intervention you think would be effective against the kill chain you developed in Unit 3.


Prioritise a single intervention

- What does success look like with this intervention? How does it help make AI go well? 
- What's the current status of this intervention? Are governments, AI companies or other actors already doing it? If not, why not? 
- Which organisations are working on this which you can contribute to or join?

Spend ~1 hour on this.


Do your own research

In this unit, you'll synthesise everything you've learnt so far during the course, and you'll develop your own action plan for how you could contribute to making AI go well. 

We don't expect this to be super detailed or a perfect plan - treat this as a first draft, and something that's _good enough_ to help you get started.


Spend ~1 hour on this.

Once you're finished, 1) make the google doc shareable, 2) paste it below, and 3) share it with your group in Slack!


Write your personal action plan

Check out these resources if you'd like to receive career advice on AI governance, technical AI safety, or biosecurity. 


This course gave you the strategic landscape: drivers of AI progress, threat pathways, and layers of defence.

Our deeper-dive courses let you specialise in the area that fits your background and where you want to contribute. Intensive and part-time versions of each of these courses kick off every month.


We hope you've had a great time on the course, and we're excited to see how you contribute to making AI go well :) 


AGI Strategy

Create a plan for how you'll contribute. 

Start Contributing

Racing to a Better Future

Evaluate the technical trends behind AI progress, and what this implies about the future.

Drivers of AI Progress

Pathways to Harm

How could we defend against dangerous AI?

AGI Strategy

Optional advice

Resources (2 hrs)