CNAS — Technological Risks and National Security

Organization:
Center for a New American Security
Award Date:
08/2017
Amount:
$260,000
Purpose:
To support an outreach project on catastrophic risks led by Richard Danzig.

The Open Philanthropy Project awarded a grant of $260,000 to the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) to support outreach by Richard Danzig, former Secretary of the Navy, on technological risks. This grant falls within Open Philanthropy's work on global catastrophic risks.

CNAS is a nonprofit think tank that focuses on US national security issues. This funding will allow Mr. Danzig to revise and publish an already-drafted manuscript exploring and providing guidance on issues facing the US government related to potential risks from advanced technology (e.g., biosecurity, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence risks). In addition to completing the manuscript, this funding will allow Mr. Danzig to host a workshop and deliver approximately four speeches to military and intelligence community officials on the topic of technological risks in national security.

Open Philanthropy's main reason for funding this work is its broad alignment with many of Mr. Danzig’s concerns and suggestions around technological risks—for example, the belief that the national security community should spend more time thinking about emergent risks and risks of accidents from increasingly sophisticated technology, and how to respond to them. Additionally, Open Philanthropy sees Mr. Danzig as a particularly good person to spread this type of message within the national security community, given his experience there.

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