I think FHI was an extremely special place and I was privileged to get to spend time there.
I applaud attempts to continue its legacy. However, I'd feel gut-level more optimistic about plans that feel more grounded in thinking about how circumstances are different now, and then attempting to create the thing that is live and good given that, relative to attempting to copy FHI as closely as possible.
Differences in circumstance
You mention not getting to lean on Bostrom's research taste as one driver of differences, and I think this is correct but may be worth tracing out the implications of even at the stage of early planning. Other things that seem salient and important to me:
- For years, FHI was one of the only places in the world that you could seriously discuss many of these topics
- There are now much bigger communities and other institutions where these topics are at least culturally permissible (and some of them, e.g. AI safety, are the subject of very active work)
- This means that:
- One of FHI's purposes was serving a crucial niche which is now less undersupplied
- FHI benefited from being the obvious Schelling location to go to think about these topics
- Whereas even in Berkeley you want to think a bit about how you sit in the ecosystem relative to Constellation (which I think has some important FHI-like virtues, although makes different tradeoffs and misses on others)
- FHI benefited from the respectability of being part of the University
- In terms of getting outsiders to take it seriously, getting meetings with interesting people, etc.
- I'm not saying this was crucial for its success, and in any case the world looks different now; but I think it had some real impact and is worth bearing in mind
- As you mention -- you have a campus!
- I think it would be strange if this didn't have some impact on the shape of plans that would be optimal for you
Pathways to greatness
If I had to guess about the shape of plans that I think you might engage in that would lead to something deserving of the name "FHI of the West", they're less like "poll LessWrong for interest to discover if there's critical mass" (because I think that whether there's critical mass depends a lot on people's perceptions of what's there already, and because many of the people you might most want probably don't regularly read LessWrong), and more like thinking about pathways to scale gracefully while building momentum and support.
When I think about this, two ideas that seem to me like they'd make the plan more promising (that you could adopt separately or in conjunction) are (1) starting by finding research leads, and/or (2) starting small as-a-proportion-of-time. I'll elaborate on these:
Finding research leads
I think that Bostrom's taste was extremely important for FHI. There are a couple of levels this was true on:
- Cutting through unimportant stuff in seminars
- I think it's very easy for people, in research, to get fixated on things that don't really matter. Sometimes this is just about not asking enough which the really important questions are (or not being good enough at answering that); sometimes it's kind of performative, about people trying to show off how cool their work is
- Nick had low tolerance for this, as well as excellent taste. He wasn't afraid to be a bit disagreeable in trying to get to the heart of things
- This had a number of benefits:
- Helping discussions in seminars to be well-focused
- Teaching people (by example) how to do the cut-through-the-crap move
- Shaping incentives for researchers in the institute, towards tackling the important questions head on
- Gatekeeping access to the space
- Bostrom was good at selecting people who would really contribute in this environment
- This wasn't always the people who were keenest to be there; and saying "no" to people who would add a little bit but not enough (and dilute things) was probably quite important
- In some cases this meant finding outsiders (e.g. professors elsewhere) to visit, and keeping things intellectually vibrant by having discussions with people with a wide range of current interests and expertise, rather than have FHI just become an echo chamber
- Bostrom was good at selecting people who would really contribute in this environment
- Being a beacon
- Nick had a lot of good ideas, which meant that people were interested to come and talk to him, or give seminars, etc.
If you want something to really thrive, at some point you're going to have to wrestle with who is providing these functions. I think that one thing you could do is to start with this piece. Rather than think about "who are all the people who might be part of this? does that sound like critical mass?", start by asking "who are the people who could be providing these core functions?". I'd guess if you brainstorm names you'll end up with like 10-30 that might be viable (if they were interested). Then I'd think about trying to approach them to see if you can persuade one or more to play this role. (For one thing, I think this could easily end up with people saying "yes" who wouldn't express interest on the current post, and that could help you in forming a strong nucleus.)
I say "leads" rather than "lead" because it seems to me decently likely that you're best aiming to have these responsibilities be shared over a small fellowship. (I'm not confident in this.)
Your answer might also be "I, Oliver, will play this role". My gut take would be excited for you to be like one of three people in this role (with strong co-leads, who are maybe complementary in the sense that they're strong at some styles of thinking you don't know exactly how to replicate), and kind of weakly pessimistic about you doing it alone. (It certainly might be that that pessimism is misplaced.)
Starting small as-a-proportion-of-time
Generally, things start a bit small, and then scale up. People can be reluctant to make a large change in life circumstance (like moving job or even city) for something where it's unknown what the thing they're joining even is. By starting small you get to iron out kinks and then move on from there.
Given that you have the campus, I'd seriously consider starting small not as-a-number-of-people but as-a-proportion-of-time. You might not have the convening power to get a bunch of great people to make this their full time job right now (especially if they don't have a good sense who their colleagues will be etc.). But you probably do have the convening power to get a bunch of great people to show up for a week or two, talk through big issues, and spark collaborations.
I think that you could run some events like this. Maybe to start they're just kind of like conferences / workshops, with a certain focus. (I'd still start by trying to find something like "research leads" for the specific events, as I think it would help convening power as well as helping the things to go well.) In some sense that might be enough for carrying forward the spirit of FHI -- it's important that there are spaces for it, not that these spaces are open 365. But if it goes well and they seem productive, it could be expanded. Rather than just "research weeks", offer "visiting fellowships" where people take a (well-paid) 1-3 month sabbatical from their regular job to come and be in person all at the same time. And then if that's going well consider expanding to a permanent research group. (Or not! Perhaps the ephemeral nature of short-term things, and constantly having new people, would prove even more productive.)
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TLDR: I am investigating whether to found a spiritual successor to FHI, housed under Lightcone Infrastructure, providing a rich cultural environment and financial support to researchers and entrepreneurs in the intellectual tradition of the Future of Humanity Institute. Fill out this form or comment below to express interest in being involved either as a researcher, entrepreneurial founder-type, or funder.
The Future of Humanity Institute is dead:
I think FHI was one of the best intellectual institutions in history. Many of the most important concepts[1] in my intellectual vocabulary were developed and popularized under its roof, and many crucial considerations that form the bedrock of my current life plans were discovered and explained there (including the concept of crucial considerations itself).
With the death of FHI (as well as MIRI moving away from research towards advocacy), there no longer exists a place for broadly-scoped research on the most crucial considerations for humanity's future. The closest place I can think of that currently houses that kind of work is the Open Philanthropy worldview investigation team, which houses e.g. Joe Carlsmith, but my sense is Open Philanthropy is really not the best vehicle for that kind of work.
While many of the ideas that FHI was working on have found traction in other places in the world (like right here on LessWrong), I do think that with the death of FHI, there no longer exists any place where researchers who want to think about the future of humanity in an open ended way can work with other people in a high-bandwidth context, or get operational support for doing so. That seems bad.
So I am thinking about fixing it (and have been jokingly internally referring to my plans for doing so as "creating an FHI of the West"[2]). Anders Sandberg, in his oral history of FHI, wrote the following as his best guess of what made FHI work:
Some additional things that came up in a conversation I had with Bostrom himself about this:
My sense is Lightcone is pretty well-placed for doing a good job at these, having supported a lot of related research through our work on LessWrong, having a fully outfitted campus in Downtown Berkeley, having a lot of established relationships with many researchers in adjacent fields, and not being particularly beholden to any conservative and bureaucratic institutions threatening to smother us the same way the University of Oxford smothered FHI.
One of the key uncertainties that I have is whether there is a critical mass of great researchers to support that would want to work with me and others in the space. My best guess is I could fundraise for something like this, and I feel good about my ability to cultivate a good culture and to handle the logistics and operations of such an organization well, but I have less of a sense of who might be interested in being part of such an organization. I also of course think Bostrom was a more skilled researcher than anyone working at Lightcone right now, and his taste played a large role, and that at least suggests anything I run would look quite different from what FHI looked like.
So this post is a call for people to register interest in joining or supporting such an institution. You can fill out this form with a bunch of questions, or comment below with your thoughts about what kind of thing you might be most interested in participating in:
P.S. Bostrom himself wrote a poem about the FHI. For April 1st me and my team turned it into a song that you can listen to here.
Some examples of concepts coined or developed at FHI that I use frequently (quoting this EA Forum comment):
Among college campuses there seems to be a somewhat common trope to call yourself "the Harvard of the West" or "the Harvard of the Midwest", in a somewhat clear exaggeration of the actual quality of the university. This became more of an ongoing and recurring joke when Kennedy visited the University of Michigan Ann Arbor which had often been called (unclear whether intended as a joke or seriously) the "Harvard of the Midwest" and identified himself (as a Harvard graduate) as "a graduate of the Michigan of the East".