foresight

The Foresight Institute (Foresight) is a San Francisco-based research non-profit that promotes the development of nanotechnology and other emerging technologies, such as safe AGI, biotech and longevity.Foresight runs four cross-disciplinary program tracks to research, advance, and govern maturing technologies for the long-term benefit of life and the biosphere: Molecular machine nanotechnology for building better materials, biotechnology for health extension, and computer science and crypto commerce for intelligent global cooperation.Foresight also runs a program on "Existential hope", pushing forward the concept coined by Toby Ord and Owen Cotton-Barrett in their 2015 paper "Existential risk and Existential hope: Definitions: "[...]we want to be able to refer to the chance of an existential eucatastrophe; upside risk on a large scale. We could call such a chance an existential hope. [...] Some people are trying to identify and avert specific threats to our future – reducing existential risk. Others are trying to steer us towards a world where we are robustly well-prepared to face whatever obstacles come – they are seeking to increase existential hope." <Foresight's stated strategy is to focus on creating a community to promote beneficial uses of new technologies and reduce misuse and accidents potentially associated with them.Foresight runs a one-year Fellowship program aimed at giving researchers and innovators the support and mentorship to accelerate their projects while they continue to work in their existing career.Since 2021 Foresight hosts a podcast about grand futures called "The Foresight Institute Podcast" and share all their material as open source via YouTube with lectures from scientists and other relevant actors within their fields of interest.Foresight hosts a yearly conference called Vision Weekend focusing on envisioning positive long-term futures. The institute holds conferences on molecular nanotechnology and awards yearly prizes for developments in the field.In an article from 1999, The Foresight Institute and its founder Eric Drexler have been criticized for unrealistic expectations on nanotechnology, ignoring quantum effects in their design, lack of practical output, and technical obsolescence.

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