SFF Org funding long form

  • Posted by JGlenn
  • On 21 April 2021
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This template is used to create Long Form Application Attachments for funding from the Survival and Flourishing Fund (SFF).

Basics

What amount of funding is being requested, and for what period of time? (Feel free to write down a range of funding).

$1,076,250 over two years, but can be broken into phases funded separately

  1. Your name (the person who filled out this application):

Jerome C. Glenn

  1. The name of the organization for which you are requesting funding:

The Millennium Project

3. An org chart (or brief written description), including the Board (if applicable) for the organization:
Board of Directors

Jerome Glenn, Acting Chairman, CEO, Co-Founder
Concepcion Olavarrieta, Vice-Chair
Theodore Gordon, Senior Fellow, Co-Founder
Charles Perrottet, Secretary
Elizabeth Florescu, Treasurer
Youngsook Park, Member
Ibon, Zugasti, Member

Ex Officio
Jose Cordeiro, representative of RIBER network
Cornelia Daheim, representative of Foresight Europe Network

Staff

Jerome C. Glenn, Executive Director, Co-Founder, Washington, D.C.
Theodore J. Gordon, Senior Fellow, Millennium Project Co-Founder, Old Lyme, CT, USA
Elizabeth Florescu, Director of Research, the Millennium Project, Romania and Canada
Wes Boyer, Chief Information Officer, the Millennium Project, San Francisco, California

James Boyd, Research Assistant, The Millennium Project, Bolder Colorado, USA

Interns in Washington, DC and Tele-Interns from around the world

Planning Committee

  • Rosa Algeria, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, Node co-Chair, Brazil
  • Syed Isa Syed Alwi, Algaetech Group, Malaysia Node Chair
  • Ali Ameen Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), Ahmadi, Kuwait, Node Chair
  • Mohsen Bahrami, Professor  at the Amir Kabir University of Technology, Node Chair, Iran
  • Artak Barseghyan, NATO STB Armenian Representative, Engineering Academy of Armenia, Node Chair Armenia
  • Mara Di Berardo, Communications consultant, Node Co-Chair, Italy
  • Clem Bezold, Chairman, Institute for Alternative Futures, Alexandria VA, USA
  • Puruesh Chaudhary, President, AGAHI, Pakistan, Node Chair, Pakistan
  • Jose Cordeiro, Futurist consultant, Caracas and Madrid, Node Chair, Venezuela
  • Shermon Cruz, VP, Philippine Futures Thinking Society, Manila, Philippines Node Chair
  • Cornelia Daheim, President, Future-Impacts, Cologne/Germany, Node Chair, Germany
  • Francisco Dallmeier, Biodiversity, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., USA
  • Philippe Destatte, Director, The Destree Institute, Namur, Wallonia, Belgium, Brussels-Area Node Chair
  • Jelel Ezzine, Pres. Tunisian Assoc. for the Advancement of Science, Technology and Innovation, Node Chair, Tunisia
  • Nadezhda Gaponenko, Russian Institute of Economics, Policy and Law, Moscow, Node Chair, Russia
  • Lydia Garrido, South American Institute for Resilience and Sustainability Studies (SARAS), Montevideo, Node Chair, Uruguay 
  • Blaz Golob, Present GoForeSight and Node Chair, South East European Node,  Ljubljana, Slovenia
  • John J. Gottsman, Clarity Group, San Francisco, CA, Silicon Valley Node co-Chair
  • Miguel A. Gutierrez, Globalization, Inter Universities relations, Buenos Aires, Node Chair, Argentina 
  • Sirkka Heinonen, Professor, Finland Futures Research Center, Node Chair, Finland
  • Hazel Henderson,  CEO, Ethical Markets Media Certified B. Corp. St. Augustine Florida  and Brazil
  • Andy Hines, Program for the Study of the Future, University of Houston, Clearlake, Texas
  • Brock Hinzmann, San Francisco, CA, Silicon Valley Node co-Chair
  • Arnoldo Jose de Hoyos, PUC-SP Sao Paulo Catholic University, Sao Paulo, Node C0-Chair, Brazil
  • Reyhan Huseynova, Azerbaijan Future Studies Society, Baku, Azerbaijan
  • Zhouying Jin, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Institute of Sopft Technology , Beijing, P.R. China
  • Geci Karuri-Sebina, Specialist, SA Ministry of Finance, Pretoria, South Africa
  • Anita Kelleher, Designer Futures, Inglewood, WA, Node Chair, Australia
  • Ivan Klinec, Slovakia Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Node Chair, Slovakia
  • Norbert Kolos, 4C Future Computing, Warsaw, Poland, Node Chair, Poland
  • Luis Lira, Prospective and Strategy Chilean Council (CCPE), Santiago, Node Chair, Chile
  • Kamal Zaki Mahmoud Sheer, Director, Egyptian Arab Futures Assoc., Cairo, Egypt Node Chair
  • Stavros Mantzanakis, Partner, Emetris SA, Node Chair, Greece
  • Sara Ishaq Mohammad, Roads and Transportation Authority, Dubai, Dubai Node Co-Chair
  • Muhammad Al Mheiri, Dubai Police Authority, Dubai Node Chair
  • Milan Maric, Director, S&T Montenegro, Podgorica, Node Co-Chair
  • Francisco José Mojica, Director, Center for Strategic Thinking and Foresight, Colombia Node Chair
  • Shinji Matsumoto, Chair of Japan Society for Future Studies (JSFS) Node, Tokyo, Japan
  • Riel Miller, Head of Foresight, UNESCO, Paris, France
  • Kate McCallum, Pres., c3™ The Center for Conscious Creativity, Los Angeles, California, Arts-Media Node co-Chair
  • Hind Al Mualla, Head of Innovation, Knowledge and Human Development Authority, Dubai, UAE, Node Chair, Dubai
  • Arthur Muliro,  Director, East African, Society for International Development, Node Chair, East Africa
  • Leopold Mureithi, University of Nairobi, Kenya Node Co-Chair
  • Eric Noel, President, Canada 2030, Canada Node Chair
  • Pavel Novacek, Palacky Univ., Olomouc, and Charles Univ. Prague, Czech Republic, and Node Chair, East Europe
  • Concepcion Olavarrieta, Nodo Mexicano. El Proyecto Del Milenio, A.C., Mexico City, Node Chair, Mexico
  • Fernando Ortega, Peruvian Association of Prospective and Future Studies Lima, Node Chair, Peru
  • Youngsook Park, Chair, UN Future Forum, and Node Chair, South Korea
  • Charles Perrottet, The Futures Strategy Group, Glastonbury, CT, USA
  • Adrian Pop, Professor, Nati. Univ. of Political Science and Public Administration  , Bucharest, Node Chair, Romania
  • David Rejeski, Environmental Law Institute, Washington, D.C., USA
  • Saphia Richou, Prospective-Foresight Network, Paris, France
  • Stanley Rosen, Futurist consultant, Los Angeles, CA
  • Paul Saffo, Futurist, Stanford University, Silicon Valley, CA
  • Karl Schroeder, Futurist and science fiction author, Toronto, Node co-Chair, Canada
  • Mihaly Simai, Director, World Institute of Economics, Budapest, Hungary, co-Chair, Hungary
  • Yarima Sosa, Fundación Global Democracia y Desarrollo, FUNGLODE, Santo Domingo,  Node Chair, Dominican Republic and Co-Chair, the Caribbean
  • Ufuk Tarhan, Futurist, Istanbul, Node Chair, Turkey
  • Mohan Tikku, Futurist & Journalist, New Delhi, Node Chair, India
  • Paul Werbos, National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA
  • Simone Di Zio, University G. d’Annunzio and Node C0-Chair Italy
  • Ibon Zugasti – Prospektiker, Instituto Europeo de Prospectiva y Estrategia, Node Chair, Spain

4 1-2 sentence description of the organization’s general activities:
A global participatory think tank established in 1996 under the American Council for the United Nations University that became independent in 2009 and has grown to 67 Nodes around the world (an MP Node is a group of institutions and individuals that connect local and global perspectives) to improve thinking about the future and make that thinking available through a variety of media for feedback to accumulate wisdom about the future for better decisions today.

5. The official name of the receiving charity:

The Millennium Project Corporation

6.The EIN, or foreign equivalent tax ID number of the receiving charity:
      26-4665637

Track record summary

Impact track record

  • What have been your organization’s highest impact contributions to the reduction of existential risk, or other efforts to improve humanity’s long-term prospects for survival and flourishing, so far? Please provide 2 to 10 written documents, presentations, interviews, or event records demonstratingthese (if part of a collaboration, please describe the extent to which your organization was responsible for each).

    1: Environmental Security several special reports (including in the initial definition study in 1997 https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA593191.pdf) and ten years monthly international emerging issues of environmental security reports have contributed funded by the U.S. Army shared with other militaries around the world was instrumental in putting climate change on the global security agenda; 2: Single individual acting alone making and deploying a weapon of mass destruction scenarios the Office of Science, Department of Energy and workshop and book for NATO https://www.iospress.nl/book/identification-of-potential-terrorists-and-adversary-planning/; 3: Updating and improving strategies to address long range issues of global warming in 19 State of the Future reports since 1997 https://millennium-project.org/publications-2-3/

  • If you have other important evidence of, or arguments for, the impact of your organization‘s activities that you would like to share, please include here. For newer organizations, it may be useful to present the strongest arguments for the general type of work you are planning to do.

Initial work on long-range threat of advanced AI https://millennium-project.org/transition-from-artificial-narrow-to-artificial-general-intelligence-governance/

Statements of impacts by others: A pragmatic exploration of possible futures – choices and consequences – really exercised my imagination (Vint Cerf, Internet Pioneer); A high level, reliable intellectual compass for the conflict ridden, and uncertain world advancing toward the mid-century (Mihály Simai, former Chairman, United Nations University; Outstanding report! (Jim Spohrer, Director, Cognitive Opentech Group, IBM); The State of the Future is an informative publication that gives invaluable insights into the future for the United Nations, its Member States, and civil society (Ban Ki-moon, Former Secretary-General of the UN)

Spending track record

There is no need to be particularly detailed in the upcoming spending and funding questions. If you have prepared documents for other uses, please feel free to include them as your response; it’s likely they’ll suffice for our purpose. We’ll follow-up if we need more detailed information.

  • Roughly how has your organization spent funding over the last year? If you have information for a longer time-period, you may include that as well. (Please indicate if the previous year is not representative).

    The previous year is not representative out budgets have ranged from nearly $1 million to just $50,000 as last year with all staff as volunteers the primary cost is for  our Global Futures Intelligence System on Amazon Web Services

Activities in need of funding

For the bulleted questions below, feel free to include multiple scenarios, if relevant, based on the amount of funding received from SFF. It’s often helpful to us if you lay out what you would do if you received 25%, 50%, and 75% of the total amount you are requesting from SFF.

  • Please include in this document a budget showing your expected spending over the next year (or longer), including the activities that you hope to use SFF funding to support.  This can be the same as the budget you provide on your short-form application.  Please break down the budget to include details such as:
    • Staff Compensation. E.g., “4 Project Managers – $240k”.  There is no need to include the names of individuals in the compensation plan.   
    • Overhead costs. E.g., “office rent – $30k” (we understand the importance of supporting an organization’s core activities, so it is OK if this seems high).
    • Program activity costs. E.g., conference: food, space rental, travel subsidies, speaker fees, and other and supplies – $50k” (we should be able to have a better sense of what your object-level activities are from looking at your budget).

1. Literature review including research and conference reports and papers to improve questions for interviews, identify interviewees, and input to RTD and panel

1 month two people 40 person days @ $1,500 = $60,000

2.  Interviews: 25 interviewees, each interviewed by two interviewers and analysis of results

Interviewers 60 person days   90,000

Interviewee Honorariums 25 @ $500 = 12,500

3. Design, test, and conduct RTD and recruit participants and analyze results

2.5 months 20 person days 30,000

4. Write 15 scenarios (each 2-3 pages)

6 months 90 person days 135,000

5. Steering group review of 15 scenarios

            0.5 months 10 honorariums at $1000 = $10,000

6. Re-write scenarios based on Steering Committee feedback

            0.5 months 10 person days 15,000

7. Design, test, and conduct RTD and recruit participants and analyze results

2.5 months 20 person days   30,000

8. Re-write scenarios based on RTD feedback

3 months 20 person days 30,000

9.  Steering Committee assessment of governance models in scenarios

            0.5 months 10 honorariums @ $1000 10,000

10. Prepare draft report, editing, proofing

            1 month 15 person days 22,500

9. Steering committee final review

0.5 month 10 honorariums @ $1000 10,000

10. Final report (re-write, edit, proof, graphics, printing)

            1 month $15,000

11. Report releases, PR, promotion, conferences

            25,000

12.  40 Nodes participation

            RTD expert panel recruitment and follow up 2 RTDs @ 1000 = 80,000

            Translation RTDs and final reports 100,000

Final report printing, distribution, conferences, PR 200,000

Subtotal                     $875,000

Overhead @ 23%      201,250

Total                       $1,076,250

  • If you are seeking general support (unrestricted) funding, please tell us how you would allocate spending from SFF versus all other sources of funding, going forward.   (If this is already fully indicated in the budget, feel free to skip this question.)

(answer in black)

  • If you are seeking funding to cover specific activities, please tell us what activities and expenses you are proposing to cover, and who would work on these activities. You may also include evidence relevant to the impact of these activities here. (If this is already fully indicated in the budget, feel free to skip this question.)

(answer in black)

Plan for impact

  • What is your organization’s plan for improving humanity’s long term prospects for survival and flourishing, via actions you will take over the next few years?  How does your requested funding and resulting activities fit into that plan?

The Millennium Project proposes a two-year study with three foci:  What has to be governed, what are the global approaches to govern them, and what are the potential consequences, feasibility, and effectiveness of each.

The Millennium Project intends to work with leading ANI and AGI expert organizations and stake holders who have extensive experience on laying the ground work for the principals for such governance. We would also work with other individuals and organizations selected by the 65 Nodes of The Millennium Project around the world to insure a more inclusive assessment. We propose the following seven steps:  

  1. Assess the state of the art of AGI governance issues, ethics, principles, questions, concepts, models, and research centers as they relate to future governance of the potential transition from ANI to AGI via interviews, literature and research reviews, and conference results;
  2. Design and conduct an international Real-Time Delphi (RTD)[i] study to address unresolved questions during step 1. The participants on the RTD panel would be selected during step 1, and recommended by The Millennium Project’s Nodes (we estimate about 300-500 experts would be invited to participate);
  3. Construct a set of governance scenarios based on steps 1 and 2 to illustrate decisions, assumptions, feasibility, and potential effectiveness of different governance approaches;
  4. After review by the steering committee, write more detailed initial drafts of scenarios to show how each model could have mixed success, loss of control, and meet normative standards; hence, if five models are identified then 15 two to three page scenarios would be constructed:
    1. Mixed success for each model
    1. Loss of control for each model
    1. Plausible success for each model
  1. Conduct a critical review of the feasibility, viability, effectiveness, and consequences of the ANI to AGI governance models in each scenario by the steering committee and then unresolved issues submitted to a second international RTD;
  2. Rewrite the final scenarios and conclusions based on the results from the steering committee and the second RTD;
  3. Produce a report on each step of the research and recommendations for international governance of the transition from ANI to AGI for global consideration. All input from individuals and institutional participants with be anonymous (unless they indicate otherwise). They will be listed in the appendix of the report (unless they indicate otherwise) and will receive a copy of the report. It will be published by The Millennium Project for general distribution and also shared with the study’s sponsors, The Millennium Project’s network of networks, press releases, social media, and in conferences.

Examples of some initial questions the project interviewers might ask experts during Step 1 leading to the design of the RTD during step two are:

  • What has to be governed for the transition from ANI to AGI? What are the priorities?
  • What initial conditions of AGI will be necessary for the potential emergence of ASI to be beneficial to humanity?
  • How to manage the international cooperation necessary to build governance while nations and corporations are in an intellectual “arms race” for global leadership? (IAEA and nuclear weapon treaties did create governance systems during with similar dynamics.)
  • And related: How can a governance system prevent an AI arms race and escalation going faster than expected leading to war, be it kinetic, algorithmic, cyber, or information warfare?
  • If IAEA, ITU, WTO, and other international governance bodies were created today, how would officials of such agencies create them differently today, considering ANI to AGI governance issues?
  • What is the best combination of norms, principals, and values that have been put together that will be acceptable as the basis for an international governance system? GPAI? Should there be a hierarchy of values?
  • How to govern and enforce AGI algorithm audit standards?
  • How can governance prevent increased centralization of power by AI leader(s) and by AI systems themselves crowding out others?
  • How to reduce (or prevent) the use of ANI to AGI by organized crime and terrorism?
  • How can a governance model correct undesirable action unanticipated in utility functions; alignment issues?
  • To what degree do thought leaders and primary stakeholders agree about the framing of governance issues?
  • How to prevent brain computer interfaces (BCI) from making humans just one more “thing” on the Internet of Things (IOT)?
  • Should an international governance trial, test, or experiment be constructed first with a single focus (e.g., health or climate change), and then learn the rules and standards from such experiences to extend to broader governance of the transition from ANI to AGI?
  • Should AGI have rights to make its potential evolution into artificial super intelligence (ASI) more acceptable to humanity?
  • Since Blockchain is used by some for decentralized AI development, how could it be included in a governance system?
  • How can governance be flexible enough to respond to new issues previously unknown at the time of creating the governance system?

Such questions will be reviewed and edited by the steering committee before being used for the interviews conducted during step 1. See appendix for other organizations with whom we intend to collaborate and build on their research and analysis of norms, principles, values, standards, rules, audits and international conferences and potential negotiations.

Initial examples of the kinds of international and Global governance models that might be explored in the scenarios pending feedback in the first two steps:

  • Models similar to IAEA, ITU, and/or WTO with enforcement powers
  • TransInstitution (self-selected institutions and individuals from government, business, academia, NGOs, and UN organizations)
  • IPCC-like model in concert with international treaties
  • International S&T Organization (ISTO) as an online real-time global collective intelligence system; governance by information power (MP/Office of Science, DOE study)
  • GGCC (Global Governance Coordinating Committees) flexible but enforced by national sanctions, ad hoc legal rulings in different countries, insurance premiums, acting like a decentralized multi-polar monitoring system
  • A complex adaptive system
  • ISO standards affecting international purchases 
  • Put different parts of AGI governance under different bodies like ITU, WTO, WIPO

Initial Steering Committee (others will be invited before final proposal):

  • Irakli Beridze, UNICRI Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, The Hague
  • Jerome Glenn, CEO, The Millennium Project
  • Ben Goertzel, Chief Scientist, Hansen Robotics; CEO, SingluarityNet
  • Cyrus Hodes, Harvard Future Society, AI governance project
  • Zhouying Jin, Chinese Academy of Social Science, Beijing Academy of Soft Technology
  • Karl Schroeder, Science Fiction Author; Research Fellow, Human Futures Studio
  • Jim Spohrer, IBM Cognitive Opentech Group, IBM
  • Paul Werbos, former President of International Neural Network Society

Regional Coordinators:

  • Africa: Jelel Ezzine, Tunisia Node Chair
  • Asia: Zhouying Jin, China Node Chair
  • Europe: Paul Epping, Co-chair the Netherlands and Dubai Node
  • Latin America: Jose Cordeiro, President, RIBER
  • North America: Brock Hinzmann, Silicon Valley Node Chair

Initial Participating Institutions

The Millennium Project with it 67 Nodes around the world proposes to stress transinstitutional, transnational, transdisciplinary, and intercultural approaches, focusing on potential international governance frameworks for the transition from ANI to AGI.  We will build on other’s work on values, principals, issues analysis, and with input from international Real-Time Delhi studies will produce several global scenarios. These will be detailed alternative scenarios – internationally reviewed stories that connect possible future conditions with the present via plausible cause and effect links illustrating potential decisions and consequences

[i] Gordon, J. “Real-Time Delphi”. Ed. Glenn, J and Gordon, T, Futures Research Methodology 3.0. The Millennium project 2009.