Jaan Tallinn is an Estonian billionaire computer programmer and investor known for his participation in the development of Skype and file-sharing application FastTrack/Kazaa.
He is a leading figure in the field of existential risk, having co-founded both the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) at the University of Cambridge, in the United Kingdom and the Future of Life Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States.
He was an early investor and board member at DeepMind (later acquired by Google) and various other artificial intelligence companies (Anthropic, Conjecture etc).
Jaan is on the Board of the Center for AI Safety (safe.ai), on the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (thebulletin.org), and has previously served on the High-Level Expert Group on AI at the European Commission, as well as on the Estonian President’s Academic Advisory Board.
A father of five, a brilliant programmer, a business prodigy and a self-made billionaire, he is one of the most important driving forces steering humanity towards a good future. Listening to him talking about AI x-risk is heart-breaking, alarming and motivates me deeply.
