Raising science ambition: how to identify the highest-impact research for an AI world | Anastasia Gamick

Most scientists do “safe” research to secure their next grant. But what if more of them worked on the most important problems instead?

In this episode, we talk with Anastasia Gamick, co-founder of Convergent Research, about how to raise our level of ambition for what science can actually achieve.

Convergence Research incubates Focused Research Organizations: small, startup-style teams that build critical “public good” tech, which both academia and for-profits ignore.

We discuss:

• What makes a research project truly high-impact in view of an AI world
• Concrete examples of these projects: maps of brain synapses, software that’s provably safe, drug screening, good data for AI-powered scientific research, and more
• How to prioritize defensive technology, such as biosafety tools, instead of just pushing every frontier as fast as possible
• How young scientists can find the work that matters most for the future

[00:00] Cold open

[01:52] Introducing Anastasia Gamick and the mission of Convergent Research

[02:44] Defining Focused Research Organizations (FROs) and their unique characteristics

[09:46] Backcasting from 2075: what research to prioritize now to prepare for the intelligence age

[19:08] The four types of projects Convergent decides not to fund

[25:35] Biological and ecological dark matter: why we need better datasets for AI science

[28:28] Why academia and industry aren’t incentivized to build tech capabilities for the public good

[29:32] Defining “moonshot projects”: how boring drug screening creates massive downstream impact

[32:56] The future of neuroscience: capturing videos of synapses firing

[35:46] How the FRO model is catching on internationally

[36:25] Steering vs. accelerating: selecting defense-dominant technology

[41:22] Increasing human agency and how scientists can choose high-impact research areas

[46:51] The evolution of scientific funding and the role of new philanthropy

[48:05] Finding existential hope in the community of future-builders

On the Existential Hope Podcast hosts Allison Duettmann and Beatrice Erkers from the Foresight Institute invite scientists, founders, and philosophers for in-depth conversations on positive, high-tech futures.

Full transcript, listed resources, and more: https://www.existentialhope.com/podcasts

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