OpenAI Foundation pledges $1B in grants to ensure AI ‘benefits all of humanity’

Category: Technology/Innovations

Listening

Unlocking Word Meanings

Read the following words/expressions found in today’s article.

  1. philanthropic / ˌfɪl ənˈθrɒp ɪk / (adj.) – relating to helping people, especially by giving money or support to improve society
    Example:

    The company started a philanthropic program to help communities affected by disasters.


  2. mitigate / ˈmɪt ɪˌgeɪt / (v.) – to make a problem or bad situation less serious or less severe
    Example:

    New policies were created to mitigate the risks of natural disasters like floods and earthquakes.


  3. oversee / ˌoʊ vərˈsi / (v.) – to watch and manage a job, project, or group to make sure everything is done correctly
    Example:

    The manager will oversee the new project to ensure it finishes on time.


  4. revitalize / riˈvaɪt lˌaɪz / (v.) – to make something active, strong, or successful again
    Example:

    The local government organized a festival to revitalize the city center and bring more visitors.


  5. convene / kənˈvin / (v.) – to bring people together for a formal meeting or discussion
    Example:

    The company convened a group of experts to give advice on the project.


Article

Read the text below.

OpenAI Foundation, the nonprofit that controls the artificial intelligence company OpenAI and its flagship product ChatGPT, pledged to grant out $1 billion over the next year and to build up its capacity as a philanthropic funder.


The pledge represents a major development in OpenAI’s philanthropic activities and offers insight into how the company, which started as a nonprofit, plans to carry out its charitable mission to develop AI to benefit “all of humanity.”


“We aim to enable the use of AI to find solutions to humanity’s hardest problems, transform what people are capable of, and deliver real benefits in people’s lives—while working hard with partners to be ready for new challenges, and to help make society resilient, as AI advances,” OpenAI board chair Bret Taylor said in a statement.


The new funding will support life science and health research and will seek to mitigate some of the impacts of AI technologies on jobs, the economy, and mental health, especially of children, the nonprofit said. It follows a commitment to spend $25 billion to support similar causes that the OpenAI Foundation made in October, though without providing a time frame.


OpenAI Foundation will also recruit a new executive director to oversee its grantmaking, it said.


In 2025, OpenAI made an effort to revitalize the nonprofit. It convened a temporary nonprofit advisory board to offer it nonbinding guidance about how to structure its philanthropic activities while it continued to negotiate with regulators and its investors about the extent to which the nonprofit board would remain in charge of its business.


The advisory board, which included labor leader Dolores Huerta, eventually recommended that OpenAI significantly increase the resources it provided to its nonprofit and to consult extensively with communities about how AI is impacting them as it shapes its grantmaking.


OpenAI’s new vision for its charitable grantmaking comes at the same time that communities around the country worry about data centers increasing electricity costs, lawsuits accuse AI chatbots of exacerbating mental health crises, and companies and advocates question the fitness of new AI technologies to be used in war.


This article was provided by The Associated Press.


Viewpoint Discussion

Enjoy a discussion with your tutor.

Discussion A

  • OpenAI Foundation will support projects that aim to reduce the negative effects of AI technologies on jobs, the economy, and mental health, especially those affecting children. How do you feel about OpenAI having a foundation that works on reducing the negative effects of AI? How important is it for you that a company has its own foundation to help manage the problems its technology may cause? Discuss.
  • Do you think this kind of effort could succeed, considering that the foundation’s technology is also causing certain issues? Why do you say so? Do you think a company can be forgiven for causing harm if it also has a foundation that helps people? Why or why not? Discuss.

Discussion B

  • OpenAI’s board chair, Bret Taylor, said they want to use AI to find solutions to humanity’s hardest problems and help improve people’s lives. Do you agree with the idea? Why or why not? Discuss.
  • What do you think are the effects of relying on AI to solve very difficult problems? How might this change the way people think or make decisions? Discuss.