Raising Awareness for AI Existential Risks in Germany
Mentor: Karl von Wendt
Project area: AI safety explainers, creating attention for AI existential risks in Germany
Project Language
Minimum Time Commitment
10 hours per week.
Project Abstract
I would like to develop ideas and specific creative content for increasing awareness of AI existential risks in Germany/Austria/Switzerland. There is no specific proposal yet. The focus is on German language, but not limited to it. Possible forms could be video, interactive formats, games, writing, or a combination of these, ideally something unique and surprising, potentially viral.
Theory of Change
Bad frameworks produce bad decisions. The question of machine moral status will increasingly affect AI development and governance. Currently, most people reasoning about it lack adequate conceptual tools. This matters for catastrophic risk in several ways.
Under-reaction: if AI systems develop welfare-relevant internal states and we lack frameworks to recognize this, we may create systems with misaligned interests while dismissing their signals as "mere computation." A system that experiences something like suffering under certain conditions, and whose operators dismiss this, is a system with reason to deceive.
Over-reaction: anthropomorphizing systems that lack morally relevant properties wastes attention and resources, and may constrain beneficial AI development without corresponding benefit.
Poor discourse: without shared conceptual foundations, public debate about AI consciousness polarizes between dismissive and credulous positions. Neither serves good governance.
The primer addresses these by training researchers and practitioners to reason carefully across multiple frameworks, recognize what each assumes, and navigate uncertainty without false confidence. The German focus (incorporating European philosophical traditions, piloting with German-speaking users) builds SAIGE's national infrastructure while contributing to the broader field.
Conceptual clarity is infrastructure. This project builds it.
Desired Mentee Background
No specific requirements. Creativity is most important. Team members with diverse backgrounds are ideal.
Desired Mentee Level of Education
Any level.
Other Mentee Requirements
Mentees should either have some basic understanding of AI safety or a background in creativity (not necessarily professional), preferably both, but this is not a requirement. I appreciate diverse backgrounds, interests, and opinions.