Launching Humans in Control's Student Program

What this project is

Humans in Control (HIC) is an early-stage, nonpartisan grassroots organization pushing for AI safeguards. We bring together parents, neighbors, workers, students, and other community members to work towards common standards: AI should help people, rather than replace them, companies should be responsible for harms, and no one should build AI they can’t control.

We are applying for funding to begin HIC’s student organizing, starting on college campuses. In the upcoming school year, the founding student volunteer team will aim to launch four HIC campus chapters, starting with University of Virginia. The founding student volunteer team has civic experience and has spent several months exploring student advocacy around AI policy. These volunteers will be supervised by HIC’s Distributed Organizing Manager, and ultimately HIC’s National Organizing Director, who are senior grassroots operators and have experience supervising student volunteers in issue-based organizing.

Campus chapters would typically be seeded with a microgrant (usually on the order of $2K initially) for events and reimbursable expenses, and chapters would be provided volunteer training and coaching, as well as organizing and communication materials from HIC. Chapter activities will evolve over time, but will likely include events, tabling, hosting screening, giving educational presentations, and speaking to friends and peers, along with activities like reaching out to and speaking with representatives about AI safeguards, within 501(c)(3) constraints. Student organizers will be encouraged to reach out to their broader communities, outside of just the student populations, as appropriate.

Outside of microgrant chapter funding, funding from this grant would support in-person student training and gatherings (especially when inter-campus, in-person gatherings support peer learning, motivation, and useful network growth). We intend to allocate funding to where it is most useful in supporting student-led work; while we have an initial set of volunteers and campuses to target, funding may move to other campuses or volunteer activities (e.g. a student internship) if initial pilots aren’t successful (e.g. minimal trained leaders or recurring student volunteers, and/or minimal actions). If we needed to redirect from student-led funding altogether, we would contact grantors before redeploying.

Theory of impact

Humans in Control believes that to reduce the largest-scale risk from AI – loss of human control of advanced AI, that leading AI companies have acknowledged and warned about – governments need to take policy action. One of the forces that moves governments is an organized public: people from all walks of life who are showing up together to advocate for the change needed to make sure AI is helping people rather than replacing them. While polls show that most Americans are concerned about AI, many don’t fully understand the technology, and education and organizing can transform people’s concern into positive policy change.

The student program described above contributes to Humans in Control’s broader movement work, in training leaders, building chapters, and helping communities show up to ask for the change they’re seeking. Students are a strong constituency group, bringing time, energy, and passion to organizing work. This funding would only support 501(c)(3) work in education and issue advocacy. Success for this program would be measured both in terms of movement growth – number of active volunteers, trained leaders, and chapters – and in policy action, such as representatives contacted and moved.

How the money will be spent

All amounts are 501(c)(3) funds, and all activity would be 501(c)(3)-permissible; HIC's 501(c)(3) holds the 501(h) election, so anything that counts as lobbying is tracked within federal limits. Chapter leads would be unpaid volunteers during the pilot; supervision comes from existing full-time staff at no cost to this grant. HIC would pay vendors directly or reimburse documented expenses – no unrestricted transfers to students.

Minimum – $25K:

- $10,000: Campus chapter microgrants – aiming for 4+ chapters, usually ~$2K to start, plus follow-on for active chapters

- $8,000: In-person student trainings and gatherings

- $3,000: Travel (volunteer leads and staff)

- $2,500: Curriculum, materials, software

- $1,500: Administration and compliance

Ideal – $75K:

- $25,000: Campus chapter microgrants – up to ~10 chapters, usually ~$2K to start, plus follow-on for active chapters

- $25,000: In-person student trainings, gatherings, and a student convening

- $8,000: Travel

- $7,000: Curriculum, materials, digital tools

- $4,000: Data, reporting, and evaluation

- $6,000: Administration, compliance, and contingency

Link to your grantmaking.ai project

https://app.grantmaking.ai/projects/e7aa6e99-2eb4-477e-8079-79134b952802

* If you'd like to fund Humans in Control outside of our student organizing program, we're seeking funding! Please contact Vael Gates (vael@humansincontrol.org) for our longer writeup.