Vision
Bonsai’s vision is a world in which there is a constructive cooperation across governmental and non-governmental domains and governance frameworks that prevent AI technologies from becoming the catalyst of future global conflict and a risk to international peace and security.
Mission
Bonsai’s goal and mandate is to support global initiatives to mitigate the worst risks associated with AI technologies by educating decision makers, influencing policy-development processes and institutions, and amplifying the voices of researchers and practitioners working on the most promising solutions and frameworks that facilitate the safeguarding of international peace and security.
Context
Large nations and corporations are already investing the equivalent of many billions of USD annually on the development of potentially destabilizing AI technologies. Leading national governments have embarked in the pursuit, most of them having already established ministries or initiatives akin the US National AI Initiative, or the EU AI Act and accompanying regulatory instruments. The creation of such national initiatives is a clear indication of the prioritization of AI technologies into the forefront of national security and national competitiveness calculations, as well as growing AI safety concerns.
The Name
Bonsai is an ancient art that balances human desire and beauty against the otherwise wild and unpredictable forces of the natural world.
Much like a wild tree, the scientific research process often can look a bit over-grown. Individual researchers and research groups tend to work on individual aspirations, collectively pushing the state of the art forward by many small innovations. In the normal course of business this process is effective and harmless, but in a high impact technology like AI, it’s possible for a single one of those individual initiatives to have a hugely outsized effect. That’s why we like the idea of treating AI research like a bonsai tree. We want to develop the whole field with an eye toward creating a single beautiful whole, and a single trunk that can live elegantly under the stewardship of many generations to come.
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