Reducing societal-scale
risks from AI

The Center for AI Safety (CAIS — pronounced 'case') is a San Francisco-based research and field-building nonprofit. We believe that artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to profoundly benefit the world, provided that we can develop and use it safely.

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Our mission

In contrast to the dramatic progress in AI, many basic problems in AI safety have yet to be solved. Our mission is to reduce societal-scale risks associated with AI by conducting safety research, building the field of AI safety researchers, and advocating for safety standards.

AI Safety Field-Building

Featured

ML Safety Infrastructure

AI and Society Fellowship

Applications close March 24.

A three-month research program that investigates the societal impacts of advanced AI and the institutions and policies that could help societies respond well.

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Philosophy Fellowship

AI Safety, Ethics, & Society

Training 1000+ future AI safety leaders

The course offers a comprehensive introduction to how current AI systems work, their societal-scale risks, and how to manage them.

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CAIS Compute Cluster

Compute Cluster

Enabling ML safety research at scale

To support progress and innovation in AI safety, we offer researchers free access to our compute cluster, which can run and train large-scale AI systems.

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See all work

Dan Hendrycks

Director, Center for AI Safety
PhD Computer Science, UC Berkeley

"Preventing extreme risks from AI requires more than just technical work, so CAIS takes a multidisciplinary approach working across academic disciplines, public and private entities, and with the general public."

Risks from AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) possesses the potential to benefit and advance society. Like any other powerful technology, AI also carries inherent risks, including some which are potentially catastrophic. 

Current AI Systems

Current systems already can pass the bar exam, write code, fold proteins, and even explain humor. Like any other powerful technology, AI also carries inherent risks, including some which are potentially catastrophic.

AI Safety

As AI systems become more advanced and embedded in society, it becomes increasingly important to address and mitigate these risks. By prioritizing the development of safe and responsible AI practices, we can unlock the full potential of this technology for the benefit of humanity.

AI risks overview
CAIS AI Risks

Our Research

We conduct impactful research aimed at improving the safety of AI systems.

Conceptual Research

Conceptual research explores the less formalized aspects of AI safety.

Recent Conceptual Research

EIGENISM: Ethics for a Human-AI Future

Jun 1, 2026 — Dan Hendrycks

AI Deterrence by Betrayal

May 28, 2026 — Adam Khoja, Aiden Kim, Laura Hiscott, Alice Blair, Jason Hausenloy, Long Phan, Mantas Mazeika, Dan Hendrycks

A Definition of AGI

Oct 21, 2025 — Dan Hendrycks, Dawn Song, Christian Szegedy, Honglak Lee, Yarin Gal, Erik Brynjolfsson, Sharon Li, Andy Zou, Lionel Levine, Bo Han, Jie Fu, Ziwei Liu, Jinwoo Shin, Kimin Lee, Mantas Mazeika, Long Phan, George Ingebretsen, Adam Khoja, Cihang Xie, Olawale Salaudeen, Matthias Hein, Kevin Zhao, Alexander Pan, David Duvenaud, Bo Li, Steve Omohundro, Gabriel Alfour, Max Tegmark, Jaan Tallinn, Eric Schmidt, Yoshua Bengio

Superintelligence Strategy

Mar 5, 2025 — Dan Hendrycks, Eric Schmidt, Alexandr Wang

AI Deception: A Survey of Examples, Risks, and Potential Solutions

Aug 28, 2023 — Peter S. Park*, Simon Goldstein*, Aidan O'Gara, Michael Chen, Dan Hendrycks

View Conceptual Research

Technical Research

Our technical research focuses on mitigating societal-scale risks posed by AI.

Recent Technical Research

Reducing Political Manipulation with Consistency Training

May 21, 2026 — Long Phan, Devin Kim, Alex Pan, Alice Blair, Adam Khoja, Dan Hendrycks

AI Wellbeing: Measuring and Improving the Functional Pleasure and Pain of AIs

Apr 28, 2026 — Richard Ren*, Kunyang Li*, Mantas Mazeika*, Wenyu Zhang, Yury Orlovskiy†, Rishub Tamirisa†, Wenjie Jacky Mo, Dung Thuy Nguyen, Long Phan, Steven Basart†, Austin Meek, Aditya Mehta, Oliver Ingebretsen, Alice Blair, Brianna Adewinmbi, Vy Phan, Alice Gatti†, Adam Khoja, Jason Hausenloy, Devin Kim, Dan Hendrycks

Remote Labor Index: Measuring AI Automation of Remote Work

Oct 30, 2025 — Mantas Mazeika*, Alice Gatti*, Cristina Menghini*, Udari Madhushani Sehwag*, Shivam Singhal*, Yury Orlovskiy*, Steven Basart, Manasi Sharma, Denis Peskoff, Elaine Lau, Jaehyuk Lim, Lachlan Carroll, Alice Blair, Vinaya Sivakumar, Sumana Basu, Brad Kenstler, Yuntao Ma, Julian Michael, Xiaoke Li, Oliver Ingebretsen, Aditya Mehta, Jean Mottola, John Teichmann, Kevin Yu, Zaina Shaik, Adam Khoja, Richard Ren, Jason Hausenloy, Long Phan, Ye Hyet, Ankit Aich, Tahseen Rabbani, Vivswan Shah, Andriy Novykov, Felix Binder, Kirill Chugunov, Luis Ramirez, Matias Geralnik, Hernán Mesura, Dean Lee, Ed-Yeremai Hernandez Cardona, Annette Diamond, Summer Yue**, Alexandr Wang**, Bing Liu**, Ernesto Hernandez**, Dan Hendrycks**

MoReBench: Evaluating Procedural and Pluralistic Moral Reasoning in Language Models, More than Outcomes

Oct 18, 2025 — Yu Ying Chiu*, Michael S. Lee*, Rachel Calcott, Brandon Handoko, Paul de Font-Reaulx, Paula Rodriguez, Chen Bo Calvin Zhang, Ziwen Han, Udari Madhushani Sehwag, Yash Maurya, Christina Knight, Harry Lloyd, Florence Bacus, Mantas Mazeika, Bing Liu, Yejin Choi, Mitchell Gordon, Sydney Levine

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Statement on AI Extinction Risk

CAIS authored a global statement on AI Risk signed by over 700 leading AI researchers and public figures.

Signatories:
AI Scientists
Notable Figures
Geoffrey Hinton
AI Scientists
Emeritus Professor of Computer Science, University of Toronto
Yoshua Bengio
AI Scientists
Professor of Computer Science, U. Montreal / Mila
Demis Hassabis
AI Scientists
CEO, Google DeepMind
Sam Altman
Other Notable Figures
CEO, OpenAI
Dario Amodei
AI Scientists
CEO, Anthropic
Dawn Song
AI Scientists
Professor of Computer Science, UC Berkeley
Ted Lieu
Other Notable Figures
Congressman, US House of Representatives
Bill Gates
Other Notable Figures
Gates Ventures
Ya-Qin Zhang
AI Scientists
Professor and Dean, AIR, Tsinghua University
Ilya Sutskever
AI Scientists
Co-Founder and Chief Scientist, OpenAI
Igor Babuschkin
AI Scientists
Co-Founder, xAI
Shane Legg
AI Scientists
Chief AGI Scientist and Co-Founder, Google DeepMind
View Statement

Frequently Asked Questions

We have compiled a list of frequently asked questions to help you find the answers you need quickly and easily.

What does CAIS do?
Where is CAIS located?
What does CAIS mean by field-building?
How can I support CAIS and get involved?
How does CAIS choose which projects it works on?
Where can I learn more about the research CAIS is doing?