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Forethought Research is a nonprofit research organization headquartered in Oxford, UK, dedicated to preparing humanity for advanced AI development. The organization was cofounded in mid-2024 by Max Dalton (formerly Executive Director at the Centre for Effective Altruism), William MacAskill, Tom Davidson, and Amrit Sidhu-Brar. It evolved from the earlier Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research (founded 2018 by MacAskill), maintaining some administrative continuity while operating as an entirely new project with a distinct AI-focused mission.
Forethought's research agenda spans several critical areas: understanding the dynamics of AI-enabled coups and power concentration risks, modeling how AI R&D automation could trigger an intelligence explosion, developing AI tools for existential security, exploring governance frameworks for advanced AI (including international cooperation models), investigating digital rights and space governance, and articulating pathways to genuinely flourishing futures rather than merely surviving…
Forethought believes that AI systems approaching and exceeding human-level capabilities could trigger rapid, hard-to-reverse changes with massive consequences for the long-term future. Their theory of change centers on conducting rigorous, neglected research on AI macrostrategy questions that others miss or avoid due to Overton window constraints. By surfacing these critical questions early, developing clearer conceptual models, and sharing findings with AI companies, policymakers, and the research community, they aim to improve humanity's ability to navigate the transition to superintelligent AI. They emphasize that the goal is not merely surviving but achieving genuinely good outcomes, arguing that positively influencing the values, institutions, and power distributions that might be locked in during the coming years is as important as reducing extinction risk.
Manifund funding goal
Closed Jan 15, 2026
$500 minimum · $3.3M ideal
Fundraising data from grantmaking.ai, updated .
View on grantmaking.ai# Project summary
Forethought is a non\-profit that researches how to navigate the transition to a world with superintelligent AI systems\.
Our research to date has highlighted the risk of AI\-enabled coups, analyzed the likelihood of an intelligence explosion, and made the case that AI means we need to urgently address many challenges besides alignment\.
This research has already fed into AI companies’ plans, shaped 80,000 Hours’ top problem profile list, helped to catalyze a safety\-focused VC fund, and has been viewed more than 100,000 times\.
Additional funds will allow us to expand our research team and translate our ideas into policy change\.
➡️ You can see more detail about the case for funding Forethought on our Fundraiser page…
Forethought’s theory of change is to anticipate how superintelligent AI could drive extremely rapid technological and social change, build detailed models of the hardest strategic challenges in that transition, and then turn those insights into action. The team does this by researching what to do before an intelligence explosion, identifying concrete projects and policies, collaborating with researchers and think tanks, and working directly with frontier AI companies and policymakers so that their analysis shapes real-world decisions about advanced AI.