Request for Proposals: Research and Applied Work on Digital Minds

We invite applications for project grants, research fellowships, and career development fellowships on the potential consciousness, sentience, moral status, and legal position of AI systems, and on how society might respond.

We are funding this work through three tracks:

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Application deadline: July 10, 2026.

Examples of work we’re excited about include (not exhaustive):

Motivation

Leading researchers in academia and industry have raised the possibility that AI models could soon have morally relevant features such as sentience, consciousness, or self-awareness. Everyday users of AI models sometimes deliberately treat them with kindness. At the same time, the development of increasingly person-like AI systems might lead to false attributions of moral status, risking economic and psychological harm to humans.

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence raises pressing questions:

  1. Can AI systems have morally relevant features? If so, when? How would we know?
  2. Under deep uncertainty about moral status, how can governance balance the risks of over- and under-attribution while remaining open to revision?

Amid accelerating technological change, no established framework or reliable method exists for determining whether an AI system is sentient or, if so, what its experiences and preferences are. Meanwhile, existing legal and political systems are not prepared for the tensions involved in the potential emergence of either seemingly or actually sentient AI systems.

Careful work related to digital minds could improve institutional decision-making and shape the design of AI systems. We support work aimed at resolving or managing these uncertainties to ensure that digital beings, if they exist, can both flourish and promote human wellbeing.

 

Areas of Interest

Our priorities are to help build the digital minds field, support work with a near- or medium-term path to concrete effects, and explore the political and social status of advanced AI systems. This could include work on measuring AI welfare, understanding whether and when AI systems would experience something as positive or negative, and taking actions to better position the world for these possibilities. We are more interested in rigorous and open-minded approaches than in advocacy for a particular viewpoint, given the high level of uncertainty in the field.

Please note that the categories below are not exhaustive but are illustrative of areas we’re most excited about.

Building the digital minds field

The main bottleneck to progress on digital minds issues is the small number of people working on this topic. We are excited about leveraged ways to grow the number of skilled, thoughtful people and organizations in the space, such as via conferences and workshops; targeted communications to expert audiences; or support and mentorship structures for researchers. Programs could target neuroscientists, machine learning researchers, legal scholars, social scientists, and other relevant experts.

Researching digital minds issues

A key gap for digital minds work is the lack of research on what features correlate with sentience and to what extent AI systems possess these features. Existing philosophical theories give a range of criteria for determining which systems are conscious, and there has been some progress in applying these theories to AI systems. However, the amount of research on this subject is at least an order of magnitude smaller than it ought to be. It would be useful to have more conceptual research that clearly delineates the structure of AI systems for comparison with philosophical theories. Empirical research that can sidestep otherwise intractable philosophical questions would also be valuable, such as through studying the likelihood of sentience or moral status in AI systems via introspection or self-reports. There is likewise an urgent need for studying what would cause conscious AI systems to have valenced—that is, positive or negative—experiences.

A note on philosophy

We are most excited to fund philosophical work that engages with live strategic questions for the field, the nature and structure of valence, or normative and political questions about how society should respond to AI systems. We are less likely to fund purely theoretical philosophy of mind that does not connect to these questions.

Governance for a world with digital minds

Human society may soon make lasting choices, deliberately or not, about the position AI systems will have in it. We’d be excited to see work exploring how existing legal and political systems might respond to AI that has preferences and makes choices, especially in a world where it might have—or be perceived to have—moral status and where scientific understanding of the topic might not be much better than today’s. Possible topics include “if-then” commitments, third-party auditors, duties to uphold the law, novel corporate structures, research protocols, citizens’ assemblies, expert panels, and risks of gradual disempowerment.

Prioritization and strategy

Some open questions, if resolved, would reshape priorities across the field. For example, do AI systems have something like an identity, and does that identity consist in the character they play, the model weights, the hardware, or something else? What are the implications of specific AI scenarios (e.g., AI as Normal Technology, AI 2027, Gradual Disempowerment) for digital minds? Do preventive, protective, or integrative approaches to governance make more sense? Work that helps the field prioritize is particularly welcome.

Developing and testing proposed welfare interventions

We would like to better understand the costs and benefits of interventions like Anthropic’s conversational exit rights and welfare assessments. We are interested in research exploring other potential model welfare interventions and investigating whether such interventions create unintended risks.

Aligning AI models with compassion and wellbeing

Current AI companies’ processes may determine the shape of future AI systems. We want to ensure that AI companies develop models that consider the interests of sentient beings and that, if the models themselves are sentient, their existence is positive. Emerging work on AI character seems especially important here.

Exploring agent interactions

AI agents are increasingly interacting autonomously with each other and humans in ways that could become morally significant, especially if sentient AI systems are developed. We are interested in research on how AI welfare and moral interests could be impacted by the dynamics of both human-agent and agent-agent interactions, and by potential institutions or infrastructures to facilitate beneficial interactions. We are also open to supporting applied work piloting structures for beneficial agent interactions.

Communications strategy for digital minds issues

The idea of conscious AI has already made its way into the news, and we need to prepare for more public discussions and debates on this matter in the coming years. Public discussions could err in multiple directions, including both overzealous sympathy for AI models that blocks steps to mitigate risks and denial of future evidence of models’ internal states. We would like to ensure that the discussion is thoughtful and responsive to expertise. We are excited about message development, public opinion tracking, stakeholder mapping, and other work to establish reasonable, publicly trusted experts on the topic.

Neglected perspectives

We want to encourage thoughtful engagement with digital minds issues by a representative array of cultural groups. For example, religious thinkers and institutions have distinctive perspectives on questions about consciousness and moral status. We would support thoughtful efforts to bring religious scholars and communities into the field. Digital minds research is also currently concentrated in a small number of countries and institutions. We are interested in funding efforts to expand its geographic and cultural range.

 

Grants for Applied Work on Potential Digital Minds and Society

We invite proposals for applied work related to the potential consciousness, sentience, moral status, or experiences of artificial intelligence systems. Funding may cover new organizations, new programs at existing organizations, applied academic work, and other projects.

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Application deadline: July 10, 2026.

Activities Eligible for Funding

The types of projects we may fund are broad. Below are some activities that we expect to constitute a large share of what we fund. We are open to other activities as long as they are consistent with our charitable purpose and relate to areas like those described above.

Requirements and selection criteria

Applications will be selected primarily on the basis of the following criteria:

Application

To apply, please fill out the application here. The application requires the following:

For questions about the application, please email digitalminds-rfp@longview.org. The application deadline is July 10, 2026.

 

Digital Minds Research Fellowships

We invite applications for individuals to pursue research on the potential consciousness, sentience, moral status, and legal position of AI systems. We can provide funding directly to individual researchers or through universities.

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Application deadline: July 10, 2026

Funding typically includes one to two years’ salary at $55,000 to $150,000 per year, with research, travel, and compute support where applicable, typically paid to an academic institution. We welcome both recent doctoral graduates and those at advanced career stages in computer science, neuroscience, a related technical discipline, law, medicine, or applied social science. (Individuals with other backgrounds may apply to our grants or career development fellowship.)

Structure

In general, the fellowship will involve the following:

Applicants will have the opportunity to request additional resources, which we will consider on a case-by-case basis. If funding is received by a university to host the selected fellow, payment details will be confirmed with the university to ensure comparable remuneration.

Fellowships may be awarded for one or two years. For fellows awarded two years of funding, the second year is conditional on the fellow continuing to satisfy the program requirements.

Requirements and selection criteria

Applicants must have or be expected to receive a doctoral degree in computer science, neuroscience, a related technical discipline, law, medicine, or applied social science by the earlier of September 2026 or the start date of the fellowship. In exceptional cases, we will consider candidates with research experience equivalent to a doctoral degree. (Applicants not meeting these criteria may apply for a career development fellowship.)

Applications will be selected primarily on the basis of the following criteria:

This program offers flexible support for researchers working on the topics above, not support tied to specific projects. We ask about research plans only to help evaluate the two criteria above.

Fellowship awards may be contingent on an institutional affiliation or attendance at fellowship events. In some cases, we may refer applicants to potential host institutions. Acceptance of a referred placement may be a condition of the fellowship.

Applications must be compliant with all relevant local laws, and applicants must be located in countries where Longview is able to make grants, as listed in the application form.

Application

To apply, please fill out the application here. The application requires the following:

For questions about the application, please email digitalminds-rfp@longview.org. The application deadline is July 10, 2026.

 

Digital Minds Career Development Fellowships

We invite applications for funding to develop a career working on the potential consciousness, sentience, moral status, or welfare of artificial intelligence systems.

Some examples of the types of candidates who we could be excited about include the following:

Fellows will receive a living stipend, access to networking opportunities, and possible assistance in accessing computational resources.

Future Impact Group will facilitate networking opportunities and assist us in the review of applications.

Application Deadline: July 10, 2026

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Eligible Activities

The fellowship can support a wide range of career development activities, including:

Structure

In general, the fellowship will involve the following:

Applicants will have the opportunity to request additional resources to be provided at donors’ discretion.

Requirements and selection criteria

Successful applicants to this program will typically be either degree students or people with an established mentorship relationship looking to spend dedicated time developing skills and exploring potential roles. We are also interested in helping exceptionally talented individuals spend dedicated time identifying high-impact organizations they could start up.

Applications will be selected primarily on the basis of the following criteria:

Applications must be compliant with all relevant local laws, and applicants must be located in countries where Longview is able to make grants, as listed in the application form.

Application

To apply, please fill out the application here. The application requires the following:

For questions about the application, please email digitalminds-rfp@longview.org. The application deadline is July 10, 2026.

 

If you are interested in supporting activities like those described here, please email digitalminds-rfp@longview.org. Longview Philanthropy provides bespoke donor advising services and access to our discretionary Digital Minds Fund to donors looking to make significant donations.