Welcome to the first Future of Life Institute newsletter of 2025! Every month, we bring 43,000+ subscribers the latest news on how emerging technologies are transforming our world.

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Today's newsletter is a nine-minute read. Some of what we cover this month:

• 📰 What is DeepSeek, and what does it mean for the AI industry?

• 🇻🇦 The Vatican’s new document on AI

• 🕛 2025 Doomsday Clock update

• 📺 A video essay on superintelligence made for youth, by youth

• 💵 Final call for our multistakeholder engagement RFP

And much more.

If you have any feedback or questions, please feel free to send them to [email protected]. Happy New Year!

In case you somehow missed it, Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has released a new AI model, offering what appears to be a cheaper, but similarly capable, alternative to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Following its release on January 20th, DeepSeek has already reached the top of the Apple Store app downloads - and shaken up the U.S. AI industry. On the stock market, Nvidia broke records with the single biggest one-day drop in U.S. history, losing $600 billion in value last Monday.

So what’s all the fuss about? Well, DeepSeek R1 is reportedly about as powerful as OpenAI’s recent o1 model, but trained for only a fraction of the $100+ million budget that went into o1’s training. The developers behind it also seem to have built it around the U.S. ban on exporting advanced Nvidia chips to China, in place since 2022. These developments call into question the U.S.’ and U.S. companies’ ability to prevent other countries and actors from catching up to its AI development - and the point of the AI ‘arms race’ we seem to be in, to humanity’s detriment. Rumours abound that the model may have been trained using outputs from OpenAI models, but nothing has been confirmed.

While much media coverage has focused on this new development as part of a larger U.S.-China AI race, we urgently must move away from this framing. If the U.S. and China continue to compete against each other on AI development without adequate safety protocols, the incentive to cut corners on alignment, oversight, and other safety and ethics considerations will only increase.

Instead of escalating competition, both nations should prioritize risk mitigation efforts - independently and, in an ideal world, collaboratively. Open dialogue between AI labs, researchers, and policymakers across geopolitical divides is crucial to ensuring that AI development remains safe and beneficial for all.

On January 28, 2025, the Vatican released a comprehensive document titled "Antiqua et Nova: Note on the Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence," addressing AI’s potential implications and risks. This 30-page note emphasizes that AI should serve as a tool to complement human intelligence rather than replace it, underscoring the unique qualities inherent to humans.

The Vatican also raises concerns about AI's role in warfare, particularly the ethical implications of autonomous weapons systems that operate without human oversight, warning of the potential for a destabilizing arms race with catastrophic consequences for all.

One of the more notable quotes refers to the “shadow of evil” that, as they suggest, looms over AI: “Where human freedom allows for the possibility of choosing what is wrong, the moral evaluation of this technology will need to take into account how it is directed and used.”

A reminder that applications for our Multistakeholder Engagement for Safe and Prosperous AI grant program close February 4th!

We’re offering up to $5 million, likely between $100K-$500K for each project, to support work educating and engaging specific stakeholder groups on AI issues, or directly delivering grassroots outreach and organizing with the public.

Submit your brief letter of intent here.

We’ve got another winning entry from our Superintelligence Imagined creative contest for you this month!

We’re delighted to feature Young Asian Scientists’ video essay, “Superintelligence: The End of Humanity or Our Golden Age?”. As they describe it, this video is “an informative and accessible exploration of what Superintelligence is, how it might be reached, and its possible consequences” developed to help inform a younger audience.

Watch it below, and check out the other winning and runner-up entries here!