AI Risk Mitigation Fund (ARM Fund)

Theory of Change

ARM's stated theory of change: independent philanthropic funding for AI safety is essential because (1) AI labs have incentive misalignment -- "they may downplay important catastrophic risks, or overestimate their ability to mitigate risks, in order to promote their products," (2) the field needs viewpoint diversity -- "external researchers may be more comfortable voicing dissent with lab orthodoxy," (3) labs neglect foundational research areas like "mechanistic interpretability on small models, adversarial robustness, and AI alignment theory," and (4) labs don't invest in field-building or upskilling newcomers.

The founding rationale, from Linch Zhang's LTFF newsletter: "The idea is to create an excellent donation option for people solely concerned about AI Risk. They might not really buy the case for existential biosecurity, forecasting, longtermism, etc." ARM strips away EA/longtermist framing to capture donors motivated by AI catastrophic risk specifically.

What They Do

ARM launched in December 2023, spun out of the Long-Term Future Fund (LTFF). Three focus areas: technical AI safety research, AI policy, and capacity building / field-building.

Grants track record (all LTFF-era): 12 grants totaling ~$1.35M (Feb 2021 - Oct 2023) made by ARM team members while serving on the LTFF. Range $2,500-$300,000, median ~$43K. Notable grantees include SERI MATS ($300K, now a major training pipeline), Alexander Turner ($220K, shard theory), David Krueger ($200K, Cambridge compute), and Leap Labs ($195K, interpretability seed funding). The LTFF overall distributed $20M+ over five years, including $6.67M across 197 grants in 2023.

Post-launch grants: none publicly disclosed. ARM's website has stated since launch that "detailed announcements are being prepared." Over two years later, no specific ARM-era grants have been published.

Grant model: 100% pass-through -- all donations (minus processor fees) go directly to grantees. Overhead funded separately.

Key People

Caleb Parikh -- Head of EA Funds and ARM's institutional leader. Former MIRI researcher, evaluated $34M+ in grant applications. Also LTFF interim chair. Controls both the EA-branded and "non-EA"-branded funding channels.

Oliver Habryka -- Cofounder of Lightcone Infrastructure (ARM's organizational home) and LessWrong. Also a permanent LTFF fund manager. Central node connecting ARM, LTFF, LessWrong, and Lighthaven.

Thomas Larsen -- ED of Center for AI Policy (largely defunct due to funding), former MIRI alignment researcher. Assigns >20% P(catastrophe by 2030). Zvi Mowshowitz specifically praised "Larsen's ability to judge projects."

Team also includes Lawrence Chan (METR/ARC Evals) and Lauro Langosco (Cambridge PhD under David Krueger). Advisors: Aviv Ovadya (AI & democracy), Sam Bowman (Anthropic alignment), Adam Gleave (FAR AI CEO).

Money and Incentives

ARM has no independent financial reporting. It operates as a program of Lightcone Infrastructure, previously under Effective Ventures Foundation USA (EIN 47-1988398). No information exists on: total funds raised, total funds distributed, overhead costs, or donor identity.

The funding landscape gap is real. Coefficient Giving estimates AI safety receives ~20x less philanthropic funding than climate. Open Phil/Good Ventures provides >50% of philanthropic AI safety funding (some estimates ~80%). CG itself argues donors outside their network can achieve "2-5x as cost-effective" grants. Open Phil has pulled back from funding several categories (rationality community, Republican think tanks, post-alignment causes), creating gaps ARM could theoretically fill.

Organizational overhead is hidden. ARM's 100% pass-through model means Lightcone absorbs operational costs. How Lightcone funds this is unclear, particularly given Habryka's candid descriptions of Lightcone's fundraising struggles post-FTX: the dominant question for donors is "does it look good to give money to your organization?" and Lightcone faces acute status-seeking dynamics.

LTFF financial context: $6.67M distributed in 2023, targeting $700K/month ($8.4M/year). In Sept 2023, LTFF described itself as "unusually funding-constrained." Open Phil offered $3.5M in matching funds as part of "distancing." ARM was born during this financial stress.

Donor identity unknown. Whether ARM's donors are genuinely "non-EA" (the stated goal) or EA-adjacent people who prefer the AI-risk branding cannot be verified. If the latter, ARM is a zero-sum rebranding, not additive funding.

What Others Say

Zvi Mowshowitz (SFF recommender, 2025): Rates ARM "High confidence" -- "Seems very straightforwardly exactly what it is, a regranter usually in the low six figure range. Fellow recommenders were high on Larsen's ability to judge projects." By contrast, rates LTFF "Low confidence," worried about whether it "favors insiders or extracts a time or psychic tax on participants, favors legibility, or rewards 'being in the EA ecosystem.'" Suggests LTFF should only be considered if you "want to empower and strengthen the existing EA formal structures."

Benjamin Todd (80K Hours): Mentions ARM alongside Manifund as worth "further topping up" for "smaller, often individual grants" -- a minor endorsement in a list dominated by specific organizations like METR, Apollo, MATS, and Lightcone.

Asya Bergal (former LTFF chair, now Coefficient Giving): On LTFF: "skeptical of a funding dynamic that moved money primarily within existing social circles with relatively little supervision." Noted the fund was "recruiting from too narrow of a pool."

No direct criticism of ARM specifically exists. All substantive criticism targets the LTFF, from which ARM inherits personnel and institutional culture. ARM is too new and too small to have attracted independent scrutiny.

What's Absent

No post-launch grants published -- over 2 years after launch, the single most important data point for evaluating a funder does not exist.

No ARM-specific financials -- total raised, total distributed, number of donors, overhead costs all unknown.

No conflict of interest policy -- despite a documented COI (Langosco's PhD advisor Krueger received a $200K grant from the same team). The LTFF's draft COI policy explicitly argued against formal recusal: "a conservative COI policy would reliably fail to make the most valuable grants."

No documented separation from LTFF -- the promised "greater practical separation" hasn't visibly materialized. Same 5 people sit on both funds.

No public communication from ARM's leader -- Caleb Parikh has not publicly articulated ARM's strategy or differentiation from LTFF. The founding vision was articulated by Linch Zhang, whose current involvement is unclear.

No annual report, no grant evaluation, no application process, no timeline.