Global Priorities Institute

Last month, Jake Nebel (Princeton University) gave this year's Parfit Memorial Lecture entitled "The Procreation Asymmetry: Some Puzzles." In case you missed it, our colleagues at @uehiro.ox.ac.uk have published a summary of the lecture in their blog: blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2025/07/2025...

Jeffrey Ely | Natural Selection of Artificial Intelligence We study the AI control problem in the context of decentralized eco- nomic production. Profit-maximizing firms employ artificial intelligence to automate aspects of production. This creates a feedback...

Last week, Jeff Ely gave this year's Atkinson Memorial Lecture on "Natural Selection of Artificial Intelligence". If you missed it, you can now watch a recording of his talk on our website: globalprioritiesinstitute.org/jeffrey-ely-... @oxfordecondept.bsky.social

Our Atkinson Memorial Lecture is next Wednesday! There is still time to sign up. You can join online or in person in Oxford.

A reminder that this year's Parfit Memorial Lecture is next Monday. You can still sign up to join us in Oxford!

Shutdownable Agents through POST-Agency - Elliott Thornley Many fear that future artificial agents will resist shutdown. I present an idea – the POST-Agents Proposal – for ensuring that doesn’t happen. I propose that we train agents to satisfy Preferences Onl...

A new working paper, "Shutdownable Agents through POST-Agency" by Elliott Thornley, is now available on our website. Read it here:
globalprioritiesinstitute.org/thornley-shu...

Atkinson Memorial Lecture 2024 - Jeffrey Ely The Atkinson Memorial Lecture is an annual distinguished lecture series established in 2018 in memory of Professor Sir Tony Atkinson, jointly by the Global Priorities Institute (GPI) and the Departmen...

This year's Atkinson Memorial Lecture "Natural Selection of Artificial Intelligence", will be given by Jeffrey Ely on 18 June. You can attend in person in Oxford or remotely. Sign up here: globalprioritiesinstitute.org/atkinson-mem...

Parfit Memorial Lecture 2025 - Jacob M. Nebel The Parfit Memorial Lecture is an annual distinguished lecture series established by the Global Priorities Institute (GPI) in memory of Derek Parfit. The aim is to encourage research among academic ph...

This year's Parfit Memorial Lecture - jointly organised by GPI and @uehiro.ox.ac.uk - will take place on 16 June. Prof Jake Nebel will talk about "The Procreation Asymmetry: Some Puzzles" Follow the link for more info and registration. globalprioritiesinstitute.org/parfit-memor...

The structure of critical sets - Walter Bossert, Susumu Cato and Kohei Kamaga The purpose of this paper is to address some ambiguities and misunderstandings that appear in previous studies of population ethics. In particular, we examine the structure of intervals that are emplo...

Walter Bossert, Susumu Cato and Kohei Kamaga's working paper, The structure of critical sets, can now be read here: globalprioritiesinstitute.org/bossert-cato...

Population ethics with thresholds - Walter Bossert, Susumu Cato and Kohei Kamaga We propose a new class of social quasi-orderings in a variable-population setting. In order to declare one utility distribution at least as good as another, the critical-level utilitarian value of the...

Population ethics with thresholds, by Walter Bossert, Susumu Cato and Kohei Kamaga has been added to GPI's Working Paper Series. You can now read it here: globalprioritiesinstitute.org/bossert-cato...

Jeffrey Ely (Northwestern University) is giving this year's Atkinson Memorial Lecture, 'Incentive-compatible information design' (18 June). Follow the link to register! www.ticketsource.co.uk/department-o...

The Economics of Transformative AI Summer 2025 Some claim that advanced AI will greatly accelerate economic growth, displace labor, and/or risk existential catastrophe. This course covers a selection of tools in (mainly) economic theory relevant t...

GPI Research Affiliate Philip Trammell is giving a summer course on the Economics of Transformative AI at Stanford this year. More info and applications here: digitaleconomy.stanford.edu/etai-course/. Applications close 21 February.

Once More, Without Feeling - Andreas Mogensen I argue for a pluralist theory of moral standing, on which both welfare subjectivity and autonomy can confer moral status. I argue that autonomy doesn’t entail welfare subjectivity, but can ground mor...

Once More, Without Feeling, the newest working paper by Andreas Mogensen, is now available to read here: globalprioritiesinstitute.org/mogensen-onc...

Numbers Tell, Words Sell - Michael Thaler, Mattie Toma and Victor Yaneng Wang When communicating numeric estimates with policymakers, journalists, or the general public, experts must choose between using numbers or natural language. We run two experiments to study whether exper...

Numbers Tell, Words Sell, the new working paper by Michael Thaler, @mattietoma.bsky.social and Victor Yaneng Wang is now available to read here: globalprioritiesinstitute.org/thaler-toma-...

In Defence of Moderation - Jacob Barrett A decision theory is fanatical if it says that, for any sure thing of getting some finite amount of value, it would always be better to almost certainly get nothing while having some tiny probability ...

You can now read Jacob Barrett's working paper, In Defence of Moderation, here: globalprioritiesinstitute.org/in-defence-o...

Measuring AI-Driven Risk with Stock Prices - Susana Campos-Martins We propose an empirical approach to identify and measure AI-driven shocks based on the co-movements of relevant financial asset prices. For that purpose, we first calculate the common volatility of th...

Susana Campos-Martins' newest working paper, Measuring AI-Driven Risk with Stock Prices, is now available to read here: globalprioritiesinstitute.org/measuring-ai...

Imperfect Recall and AI Delegation - Eric Olav Chen, Alexis Ghersengorin and Sami Petersen A principal wants to deploy an artificial intelligence (AI) system to perform some task. But the AI may be misaligned and aim to pursue a conflicting objective. The principal cannot restrict its optio...

Imperfect Recall and AI Delegation, the new working paper by Eric Olav Chen, @alexghersen.bsky.social and Sami Petersen is now available to read here: globalprioritiesinstitute.org/imperfect-re...

Research agenda - Global Priorities Institute The central focus of GPI is what we call ‘global priorities research’: research into issues that arise in response to the question, ‘What should we do with a given amount of limited resources if our a...

We’re excited to announce our new research agendas – for philosophy, economics and psychology – have now been published! You can read them here: globalprioritiesinstitute.org/research-age...