Notable recent
$1M Truth-seeking AI round in partnership with FIRE in 2025 (27 inaugural + 24 second-cohort winners); Institute for Decentralized AI launched September 2025; rolling fast grants and themed cohorts year-round.
Documented grants (18)
- Institute for Decentralized AI launch 2025-09 · 5 fully funded research positions
Recipient: Samuele Marro (Cosmos Incubation Fellow)
New institute combining research and infrastructure to support AI that operates without centralized gatekeepers. Initial cohort of five fully funded positions across Oxford and Stanford.
- Metalens 2025-08-15 · $1K-$10K plus compute
Recipient: Johanna Einsiedler
Open-source scientific research platform combining AI summarization with structured human checks, intended to help researchers see beyond hype and identify reliable claims in dense literature.
- Perplex 2025-08-15 · $1K-$10K plus compute
Recipient: Steven Molotnikov
Tooling for surfacing hidden goals in closed AI systems by probing them with open-weight reference models. Aims to give independent reviewers a way to audit proprietary deployments.
- Policy Explorer 2025-08-15 · $1K-$10K plus compute
Recipient: Caleb Maresca
AI tool for analyzing the impacts and assumptions embedded in regulatory and policy proposals, geared toward helping civil-society analysts surface what a rule actually does.
- Argument Debugger 2025-08-15 · $1K-$10K plus compute
Recipient: Nada Amin
AI assistant that finds gaps in chains of reasoning and suggests repairs, framed as a tool for better arguments rather than persuasive ones. Built by a Harvard CS faculty member.
- Remarker 2025-08-15 · $1K-$10K plus compute
Recipient: Jonas Kgomo
Open-source Wikipedia-like reference for exploring truth-seeking behavior in LLMs. Curates examples and methods so other researchers can build on a shared corpus.
- Reward Hacking Benchmark 2025-08-15 · $1K-$10K plus compute
Recipient: Kunvar Thaman
Open benchmark that systematically tests LLM agents for reward hacking and deceptive behavior, providing a public-good evaluation rather than relying on lab-internal red teams.
- Socratic Mirror 2025-08-15 · $1K-$10K plus compute
Recipient: Zhongying Qiao
AI thought partner designed to interrogate the user rather than answer them, modelling Socratic questioning to push deeper thinking instead of optimizing for satisfaction.
- Socratica 2025-08-15 · $1K-$10K plus compute
Recipient: Jasmine Cui
AI librarian that conducts research and helps users formulate better questions, treating question-quality as a first-class output rather than a means to an answer.
- Praxis-based AI alignment values 2024-12-17 · $1K-$10K range
Recipient: Peli Grietzer
Harvard-trained researcher bridging philosophy, AI, and literary humanities. Defines praxis-based values inspired by virtue ethics to guide AI alignment beyond rule-based approaches.
- Variable-binding interpretability infrastructure 2024-12-17 · $1K-$10K range
Recipient: Raphaël Millière
Macquarie University philosopher of mind developing open infrastructure for AI interpretability research, focused on how neural networks bind variables, a long-standing question in cognitive science.
- Public AI digital library 2024-12-17 · $1K-$10K range
Recipient: Sam Klein (Public AI Network)
Cofounder of Public AI Network and longtime Wikipedian mapping how a public-good global digital library powered by generative AI could be built and governed.
- Open agent economy infrastructure 2024-12-17 · $1K-$10K range
Recipient: Seth Lazar
Australian National University political philosopher developing technical and regulatory groundwork for an open agent economy that resists centralization by the largest agent platform companies.
- Computational virtue ethics framework 2024-09-10 · $1K-$10K range
Recipient: Rocco Hu
Oxford-trained philosopher-computer-scientist developing a computational theory of virtue ethics for AI alignment, building grounded approaches to AI value learning rooted in Aristotelian rather than utilitarian frames.
- Decentralized AI commons for live arts (The Sphere) 2024-09-10 · $1K-$10K range
Recipient: Erik Bordeleau
Researcher building The Sphere, an AI commons for preserving and remixing live performance art. Explores how decentralized governance and AI can sustain non-commercial creative work.
- Bio-inspired AI swarm simulation platform 2024-09-10 · $1K-$10K range
Recipient: Alfaxad Eyembe
Open simulation platform for studying multi-agent coordination patterns inspired by biological swarms, intended as a substrate for cooperative-AI experiments.
- AI-driven digital wargaming platform 2024-09-10 · $1K-$10K range
Recipient: Jake Birdwell
AI-driven wargaming platform for exploring policy and strategic decisions involving advanced AI, treating wargames as a deliberation tool for human decision-makers.
- Silicon Valley ideology seminar series 2024-09-10 · $1K-$10K range
Recipient: Nadia Asparouhova and Tim Hwang
Pre-election seminar series convening researchers, journalists, and policymakers to dissect the political ideologies shaping AI development in Silicon Valley.
Process
Open application; rapid decisions; 90-day prototype window. Themed rounds run with partners (FIRE for truth-seeking, IHS for scholarship).
Cadence
Rolling fast grants; periodic themed cohorts