PauseAI UKUK

Governance

Our board

Joseph Miller

Joseph Miller

Director of PauseAI UK

David Wood

David Wood

Author and Chair of the London Futurists

Joep Meindertsma

Joep Meindertsma

Founder of PauseAI Global

Jonathan Bostock

Jonathan Bostock

AI alignment researcher at Arcadia Impact

Donation policies

We would prefer to have fully public accounts of all donations that we receive. Unfortunately, a large fraction of the funding available to us today is only available on the condition of public anonymity.

There are several good reasons why a donor to PauseAI UK may not wish to publicly declare their donation:

  • They work for an AI company and they are concerned about retaliation from their employer.
  • They also support some political candidates and they don’t want those candidates to be targeted by AI company super PACs in retaliation.
  • They want to support think tanks or inside-game advocates who don’t want to be associated with grassroots advocacy.
  • They don’t want to be approached by other non-profits seeking funding.
  • They simply value their own privacy.

People who do not know and trust PauseAI UK may want to check that we are not an astroturf campaign, so we implement two important policies that help to ensure that we are never acting on behalf of, or influenced by, any interest other than the constituency that we claim to represent (our volunteers and citizens concerned about AI safety).

The first policy is to ensure that we know the identity of any major donors.

1. Know Your Donor

KYD information is held confidentially, shared only with the board for approval decisions, and never published without permission.

Donations above £1,000

  • Name
  • Email
  • Country of residence

We will run a quick screen to see if the person is sanctioned, a politically-exposed person (PEP) or publicly notorious for any reason.

Donors giving above £10,000

In addition to the basic info above, we (PauseAI UK) will also ask donors:

  • Nationality
  • Name of the account the payment will come from.
  • Where does this money come from?Eg. “savings from my career in software engineering”, “proceeds from selling my company in 2024”, “family wealth”
  • Are you acting on behalf of, or funded by, any third party or foreign power?
  • Will you remain solvent after making the gift?
  • Do you have major financial interests related to AI?Broad, diversified holdings such as index funds don’t need to be declared.

If the person has a very specific financial interest in AI, the board will need to ensure that such donations are unrestricted and any attempt to influence our strategy results in the gift being returned.

The danger of anonymous donations is that we might be acting on behalf of some interest other than the constituency that we claim to represent. So the board of PauseAI UK, acting as representatives of our grassroots community, must approve all donations before they are accepted.

All of our board are long-standing PauseAI members. Besides the Director, none has ever been paid or otherwise compensated for their work for PauseAI. And we will make sure that the board remains such a representative and trustworthy group.

2. Approval by the board

  • The board will approve donors giving above £10,000 cumulatively in any 12-month period.
  • The board will have access to all the KYD info above to decide whether to accept or reject the donation.

The policies outlined above are not perfect, but they provide a strong defense against PauseAI UK ever becoming a vehicle for any outside interest.

These policies may evolve over time. We will publish any changes to our policies before they are implemented.

For a more detailed discussion of the reasoning behind these policies, see this blog post by our Director.