We currently focus on four cause areas: law and governance of advanced artificial intelligence, biosecurity & pandemic preparedness, institutional design, and meta-research.
More about our researchAbout Us
The Legal Priorities Project is an independent, global research and field-building project founded by researchers at Harvard University. We conduct strategic legal research that mitigates existential risk and promotes the flourishing of future generations, and we build a field that shares these priorities.
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News
Annual Report 2022
We’re excited to share our Annual Report for 2022! Our report outlines key successes, statistics, bottlenecks, and issues from our work in 2022. It also summarizes our priorities for 2023 and our methodology for updating our priorities.
Thank you for your continued support as we work toward our goals for 2023 and beyond!
New Legal Priorities Blog
We just launched the Legal Priorities Blog. Our blog will feature shorter pieces by LPP teammates and invited authors, as well as some organizational updates. Have a look at some of the pieces published:
- Highlights from LPP’s field-building efforts
- Riley Harris: Summary – Protecting future generations: A global survey of legal academics, by Eric Martínez and Christoph Winter
- Matthijs Maas: Paths untaken: The history, epistemology and strategy of technological restraint, and lessons for AI
Stay tuned for more updates!
New research
Have a look at some of our latest publications:
- Ordinary meaning of existential risk investigates the ordinary meaning of legally relevant concepts in the existential risk literature, such as “existential risk,” “global catastrophic risk,” and “extreme risk.” It aims to provide crucial insights for those tasked with drafting and interpreting existential risk laws.
- Value alignment for advanced artificial judicial intelligence (forthcoming in American Philosophical Quarterly) draws on AI safety literature to discuss how advanced artificial judicial intelligence (AAJI) can be aligned with judicial values using specification and assurance mechanisms. It outlines various research directions where scholars of law and philosophy might offer particular insight.
- The intuitive appeal of legal protection for future generations (forthcoming in Essays on Longtermism) presents work from empirical studies indicating that the principles underlying legal longtermism are widely endorsed by legal experts and laypeople, independent of demographic factors such as gender, culture, and politics.
- Algorithmic black swans (forthcoming in Washington University Law Review) outlines five principles to guide the regulation of algorithmic black swans and to mitigate their harms.
- Existential advocacy (forthcoming in Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics) reports findings from a qualitative study of the legal advocates working to mitigate existential risk.
…and more!
Winners of our Writing Competition
We are excited to announce the winners of our writing competition! The competition sought practical guidance on how US cost-benefit analysis protocols affecting federal agencies could more fully account for the interests of future generations and catastrophic and existential risks. Congratulations to all winners!
Longtermism and the Law: Blog Symposium on Verfassungsblog
Blog post submissions to the 2022 Multidisciplinary Forum on Longtermism and the Law, co-organized by LPP and the University of Hamburg, will be published as a Blog Symposium on Verfassungsblog throughout August. Verfassungsblog is considered to be one of the most influential forums for constitutional law and policy in the world. The series includes submissions by researchers at LPP and elsewhere.
Stay up to date
If you are interested in our work, subscribe to our newsletter! Roughly once a month, you will receive a short email with our latest publications, open positions, and upcoming events. You can read our past newsletters here.
