The Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR) is a nonprofit organization based in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

, that hosts workshops on rationality and cognitive bias. It was founded in 2012 by Julia Galef, Anna Salamon, Michael Smith and Andrew Critch, to improve participants' rationality using "a set of techniques from math and decision theory for forming your beliefs about the world as accurately as possible". Its president since 2021 is Anna Salamon. CFAR's training draws upon fields such as

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...

and behavioral economics in an effort to improve people's mental habits. Jennifer Kahn visited the group and described its strengths and flaws in the ''New York Times''. CFAR has conducted a survey of participants which indicates that workshops reduce neuroticism and increase perceived efficacy. CFAR is part of the rationality movement surrounding

Eliezer Yudkowsky Eliezer Shlomo Yudkowsky (born September 11, 1979) is an American decision theory and artificial intelligence (AI) researcher and writer, best known for popularizing the idea of friendly artificial intelligence. He is a co-founder and research ...

's web site ''

LessWrong ''LessWrong'' (also written ''Less Wrong'') is a community blog and forum focused on discussion of cognitive biases, philosophy, psychology, economics, rationality, and artificial intelligence, among other topics. Purpose ''LessWrong'' prom ...

'', from which CFAR originated.

Paul Slovic Paul Slovic (born 1938 in Chicago) is a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon and the president oDecision Research Decision Research is a collection of scientists from all over the nation and in other countries that study decision- ...

and

Keith Stanovich Keith E. Stanovich is a Canadian psychologist. He is an Emeritus Professor of Applied Psychology and Human Development at the University of Toronto and former Canada Research Chair of Applied Cognitive Science. His research areas are the psych ...

have served as advisors. The group taught classes for

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

and the

Thiel Fellowship The Thiel Fellowship (originally named 20 under 20) is a fellowship created by billionaire Peter Thiel through the Thiel Foundation. The fellowship is intended for students aged 22 or younger and offers them a total of $100,000 over two years ...

. A scholarship funded by the founder of ''Skype'',

Jaan Tallinn Jaan Tallinn (born 14 February 1972) is an Estonian billionaire computer programmer and investor known for his participation in the development of Skype and file-sharing application FastTrack/ Kazaa. Jaan Tallinn is a leading figure in the field ...

, has been used to send selected Estonian students to workshops held by the Center for Applied Rationality.

Sonoma County incident

On 15 November 2019, four people dressed in Guy Fawkes masks were arrested for allegedly barricading off a wooded retreat where CFAR was holding an event. According to police, the suspects were unco-operative and spoke incoherently. Flyers found by deputies suggested they were protesting artificial intelligence and CFAR.

References

External links

* {{Existential risk from artificial intelligence Charities based in California Existential risk organizations Organizations established in 2012 Existential risk from artificial general intelligence 2012 establishments in California Rationalism