‘Eugenics on steroids’: the toxic and contested legacy of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute

Two weeks ago it was quietly announced that the Future of Humanity Institute, the renowned multidisciplinary research centre in Oxford, no longer had a future. It shut down without warning on 16 April. Initially there was just a brief statement on its website stating it had closed and that its research may continue elsewhere within and outside the university.

The institute, which was dedicated to studying existential risks to humanity, was founded in 2005 by the Swedish-born philosopher Nick Bostrom and quickly made a name for itself beyond academic circles - particularly in Silicon Valley, where a number of tech billionaires sang its praises and provided financial support.

Bostrom is perhaps best known for his bestselling 2014 book Superintelligence, which warned of the existential dangers of artificial intelligence, but he also gained widespread recognition for his 2003 academic paper "Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?". The paper argued that over time humans were likely to develop the ability to make simulations that were indistinguishable from reality, and if this was the case, it was possible that it had already happened and that we are the simulations.

I interviewed Bostrom more than a decade ago, and he possessed one of those elusive, rather abstract personalities that perhaps lend credence to the simulation theory. With his pale complexion and reputation for working through the night, he looked like the kind of guy who didn't get out much. The institute seems to have recognised this social shortcoming in its final report, a long epitaph written by FHI research fellow Anders Sandberg, which stated:

Like Sandberg, Bostrom has advocated transhumanism, the belief in using advanced technologies to enhance longevity and cognition, and is said to have signed up for cryogenic preservation. Although proudly provocative on the page, he was wary and defensive in person, as if he were privy to an earth-shattering truth that required vigilant protection.

His office, located in a medieval backstreet, was a typically cramped Oxford affair, and it would have been easy to dismiss the institute as a whimsical undertaking, an eccentric, if laudable, field of study for those, like Bostrom, with a penchant for science fiction. But even a decade ago, when I paid my visit, the FHI was already on its way to becoming the billionaire tech bros' favourite research group.

In 2018 it received £13.3m from the Open Philanthropy Project, a non-profit organisation backed by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz. And Elon Musk has also been a benefactor. Bostrom's warnings on AI were taken seriously by big tech. But as competition has heated up in the race to create a general artificial intelligence, ethics have tended to take a back-seat.