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The AI Objectives Institute (AOI) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research and development lab founded in 2021 by the late Dr. Peter Eckersley and Brittney Gallagher. Peter Eckersley was an internet security pioneer known for his work at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and as a co-creator of Let's Encrypt. He conceived AOI as an institute focused on identifying and aligning the objectives of AI with those of society. After Eckersley's passing in September 2022, the organization continued under the leadership of Brittney Gallagher (Co-founder and Vice President), Deger Turan (President, also CEO of Metaculus), and Colleen McKenzie (Executive Director, former product manager at Google and Chief of Staff at Center for Humane Technology).
AOI's research is organized around three pillars: sociotechnical alignment (developing governable AI systems and alternative paradigms), scalable coordination (improving collective deliberation and decision-making), and human autonomy (enhancing civilizational resilience and agency). The institute employs a strategy of differential technological development, advancing safety-enhancing progress while working to slow risk-increasing developments…
AOI believes that improved governance capacity is essential to addressing existential risks from AI. Their theory of change rests on differential technological development: advancing safety-enhancing tools and frameworks while identifying and mitigating risk-increasing developments. They argue that the benefits of transformative AI require deliberate planning that goes beyond technical alignment to encompass sociotechnical systems, markets, and democratic institutions. By building practical open-source tools like Talk to the City that scale collective deliberation, conducting research on AI governance and market alignment, and developing frameworks for gradual disempowerment monitoring, AOI aims to ensure that human values and agency are preserved as AI systems become more capable and embedded in societal infrastructure.
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