windfall clause
In plain wordsA proposed promise by AI companies to give away a large share of any enormous profits they make if their AI transforms the economy, so that the gains are widely shared.
A proposed voluntary but legally binding commitment by an AI developer to donate to the public benefit a share of any profits exceeding an extremely high threshold, expressed as a fraction of gross world product, with the donated share rising in tiers as profits grow. It targets the possibility that transformative AItransformative AI, n.: AI that changes the world as deeply as farming or the Industrial Revolution did. It is defined by its effects on society and the economy, not by how humanlike or clever it is. could give a single firm unprecedented wealth and power, aiming to spread the gains while costing little in expectation, since payment is due only in an unlikely windfall scenario. Its proponents examine enforceability under US corporate law and directors' fiduciary duties, how to choose beneficiaries, and how to distribute funds. The idea resembles OpenAIOpenAI, prop. n.: The American company that makes ChatGPT and the GPT models. It began in 2015 as a nonprofit research lab and is now a for-profit company overseen by a nonprofit foundation.'s 2019 capped-profit structure, in which investor returns above a fixed multiple were to flow to the nonprofit parent (replaced in its 2025 recapitalization), and features in debates on sharing the benefits of AI and on universal basic incomeuniversal basic income, n.: A regular cash payment from the government to every adult, with no conditions attached, sometimes proposed as a way to share wealth if AI takes over much paid work..
Under a windfall clause, the lab would owe a rising share of any profits above a set fraction of world output.
Origin
Proposed by Cullen O'Keefe, Peter Cihon, Ben Garfinkel, Carrick Flynn, Jade Leung and Allan Dafoe of the Centre for the Governance of AI, then at Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, in a report and in a paper presented at the AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society in February 2020.
Usage note
Critics doubt that such a pledge would be honored or enforceable in the very scenario it targets, when the firm might hold great economic and political power.
Related
- transformative AItransformative AI, n.: AI that changes the world as deeply as farming or the Industrial Revolution did. It is defined by its effects on society and the economy, not by how humanlike or clever it is.
- OpenAIOpenAI, prop. n.: The American company that makes ChatGPT and the GPT models. It began in 2015 as a nonprofit research lab and is now a for-profit company overseen by a nonprofit foundation.
- AI governanceAI governance, n.: The rules, institutions and habits that shape how AI is built and used — from laws and treaties to technical standards and a company's own review processes.
- universal basic incomeuniversal basic income, n.: A regular cash payment from the government to every adult, with no conditions attached, sometimes proposed as a way to share wealth if AI takes over much paid work.
- technological unemploymenttechnological unemployment, n.: Joblessness caused by machines or software taking over work that people used to be paid for, faster than new kinds of work appear for them.
- Future of Humanity InstituteFuture of Humanity Institute, prop. n.: Nick Bostrom's research center at Oxford University (2005–2024), where philosophers and scientists studied threats that could permanently derail humanity's future, advanced artificial intelligence among them.
Sources
- O'Keefe, C., Cihon, P., Garfinkel, B., Flynn, C., Leung, J. & Dafoe, A. (2020). The Windfall Clause: Distributing the Benefits of AI for the Common Good. Proceedings of AIES 2020.