Grant investigator: Daniel Dewey
This page was reviewed but not written by the grant investigator. Stanford University staff also reviewed this page prior to publication.
The Open Philanthropy Project recommended a gift of $100,000 to Stanford University to support machine learning security research led by Professor Dan Boneh and his PhD student, Florian Tramer. Machine learning security probes worst-case performance of learned models, and we consider work in this area a promising way of ensuring that models are “doing the right thing” in a generalizable way.
Our main rationale for making this gift include:
- We consider Florian Tramer a very strong PhD student who is currently conducting excellent machine learning security work.
- We expect excellent machine learning security work to be very important for AI safety.
- Generally speaking, we expect increased funding in areas relevant to AI safety—like machine learning security—to move the field in a direction we consider positive and aligned with our interests in mitigating potential risks from advanced AI; we therefore consider this gift a small nudge in that direction.
This gift falls within our focus area of potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence.