@Connoraxiotes David "Duvenaud" Former Anthropic Team Lead it should have said.

‘Making God’ Update [13.04.25]

High-Level Summary:

• We spent the last couple weeks on filming for our “Proof of Concept” - to show funders of the quality of our documentary.

• We have conducted 5 cinematic interviews among civil society, unions, legal experts, and AI experts. We have provided stills, but it should be noted they are yet to be fully edited. But they do give an indication of style and high quality.

• In order to increase the likelihood of film festival acceptance and streaming service acquisition thereafter, we need additional funding over the next two months to hire a full production team and gear. Mike filmed these interviews by himself and I (Connor) interviewed.

• Next steps: edit up these 5 interviews to show as our Proof of Concept video; hire full production team for new shoots and reshoots where necessary; get more great interviews; continue fundraising.

For the last two weeks, we have conducted 5 interviews, and have more in the schedule for the next couple weeks.

1) Prof. Rose Chan Loui is the Founding Executive Director, Lowell Milken Center on Philanthropy and Nonprofits at UCLA.

• We went to UCLA for a conference on AI and Nonprofits, and later filmed Rose in her family home. As we entered her home we met her Husband and her two dogs. Rose beamed at us and showed us into her office, hoping we wouldn’t find it too messy. It wasn’t!

• When we sat down to interview, Rose spoke to us about: her work in nonprofits; being dragged into the AI conversation through her legal background; the history of OpenAI as a nonprofit; Delaware Public Benefit Corporations and Anthropic; Sam Altman’s firing and OpenAI board hopes and worries; the worries she has for her family around the development of AGI.

• On 3 separate 80,000 Hours podcasts she amassed millions of views for her expertise on AI lab nonprofit structures.

2) Prof. Ellen Aprill is Senior Scholar in Residence and taught Political Activities of Nonprofit Organizations at UCLA in 2024.

• Ellen retired last year but came back to UCLA to work at the center focused on nonprofits. Like Rose, she’d been dragged into the world of AI and is worried about its implications for the world. As we turned up to her drive, Ellen ushered us into her family home. We were briefly introduced to her husband, Sunny, a retired lawyer, Ellen asked if we didn’t mind setting up as she called a student and went through their work. Even after retiring it seemed Ellen hadn’t lost her enthusiasm to teach and support.

• Ellen spoke to us in her home office about: the incorporated missions of nonprofits; valuing nonprofit AI research labs; her worries about the future; and her optimism about humanity.

3) Holly Elmore is the Executive Director of Pause AI US.

• She spoke to us in Dolores park at a leafletting session where her and other Pause AI volunteers gave their spare time to educate the public on risks from AI. The public seemed interested in what they had to say, but most smiled and carried on with their day. Holly and other volunteers spoke to us about the reason for protesting. Their solution to mitigating risks from AI is a ‘pause’ on the development of AI.

4) Eli Lifland is the Founding Researcher at the AI Futures Project, and a top forecaster.

• He spoke to us about: his work in forecasting the development of AI and in particular artificial super intelligence; a brief history of deep learning; what are LLMs?; his work on AI 2027 predicting when ASI might flood the remote job economy; his worries about AGI lab race dynamics; a race to the bottom on AI Safety; US-China race dynamics; his hopes that we slow down a bit to get this right; the burden of predicting possible catastrophe and the rest of the world being seemingly not aware and unprepared.

5) Heather-Rose is Government Affairs Lead in LA for Labor Union SAG-AFTRA.

• She spoke to us about her: political campaigning to educate Congressmen and Women on risks from AI; serves on SAG-AFTRA’s New Technology Committee, focusing on protecting actors' rights against AI misuse; she became interested in AI safety in 2020 and has since been advocating for regulations on AI-generated content and deepfakes; job loss concerns, too.

Civil Society

• We have also been interviewing the general public about their views on AI and their worries and hopes.

Upcoming Interviews

1. Cristina Criddle, Financial Times Tech Correspondent covering AI - recently broke the Financial Times story about OpenAI giving days long safety-testing rather than months for new models).

2. David Kokotajlo, Former Anthropic Team Lead.

3. John Sherman, Dads Against AI and podcasting.

Potential Interviews

1. Jack Clark (we are in touch with Anthropic Press Team).

2. Gary Marcus (said to get back to him in a couple weeks).

Interviews We’d Love

1. Kelsey Piper, Vox.

2. Daniel Kokotajlo, formerly OpenAI.

3. AI Lab employees.

4. Lab whistleblowers.

5. Civil society leaders.

Points to Note:

• The legal interviews focus on Sam Altman and OpenAI as the Professors are legal experts in the field of nonprofit reorganization. Future interviews will focus on other AGI labs, too. Like with the Eli interview, which focuses on the other players in the field.

• The stills are from interviews with a 1-man crew (just Mike, our Director). Future stills of future interviews will be even more cinematic with a full (or even half) crews. This is what we need the immediate next funding for.

Austin has set up a really great atmosphere here at Mox, and was welcoming and helpful every time I visited.