SUSTAINABLE FINANCE NEWSLETTER — Rockefeller Foundation teams with OpenAI to fix your potholes: Ross Kerber

) By Ross Kerber Oct 14 (Reuters) — Seventy years ago the Rockefeller Foundation backed a groundbreaking conference, "The Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence" the first known reference to the technical concept now remaking our world. I learned this from speaking with Andrew Sweet, a Rockefeller vice president, who sounded fired up on our Zoom call because his foundation has broadened its AI efforts and partnered with one of the industry's giants. Today Sweet and the OpenAI Foundation plan to jointly announce a project to fund city projects that use AI to improve public services.

The Rockefeller Foundation has committed $10 million to the effort and OpenAI $40 million. They are taking applications for grants of up to $2 million through November 29 and aim to fund projects that will serve 100 million residents of cities around the world. The effort builds on AI projects Rockefeller has already funded such as a chatbot-powered flood alert system in Rio de Janeiro and local government programs in Cape Town, South Africa like an alert system for ward councilors.

"I personally think, given the conversations I've had with cities and with partners over the past couple of months, that the demand for this type of opportunity is going to be through the roof," Sweet said. " The OpenAI Foundation has backed its own slate of AI projects to date, like a $60 million project to bring AI-powered weather and crop disease forecasts to small farmers. Anna Makanju, the OpenAI Foundation's Head of AI for Civil Society and Philanthropy, told me she is excited by the work after spending many years in government including at the Pentagon, on the White House National Security Council and as a foreign policy adviser to then-Vice President Joe Biden.

A goal is to learn from local users how to put AI to use. "Our thesis in our first couple of investments you'll see is that what we want is for the communities themselves to tell us where they think they would want to use AI and where they see promise," she said. " Cat In Tree I'm curious to see what local officials come up with as potential uses for AI. Organizations like the US Conference of Mayors and National League of Cities spit out lots of new ideas.

And local AI projects are already under way. One in Boulder, Colorado "uses an AI-powered assistant to help answer calls to the Boulder Police and Fire non-emergency line," according to city officials. " Anthropic's planned IPO could value the company at more than $2 trillion. 2 trillion, though its CEO Sam Altman said in September it will not go public this year because of "unacceptable" safety concerns.

Organized as a nonprofit, the OpenAI Foundation controls the for-profit company known as OpenAI Group and holds equity worth $130 billion, dwarfing other US nonprofit institutions. (The Rockefeller Foundation has $7 billion in assets) OpenAI Foundation's scale has led to concerns from other nonprofits. Last year it reached a deal with California Attorney General Rob Bonta under which it would continue to mitigate risks for teens and that a director from the nonprofit, not the for-profit, will chair a Safety and Security Committee.

OpenAI's Makanju said the agreement "confirmed the Foundation's ability to make independent decisions about philanthropic investments" — such as the cities efforts being launched. Any Model You Like Rockefeller's Sweet said cities can use any AI models, not just those from OpenAI, for applications they want funded. He and Makanju are calling their joint effort "Cities Deliver" and it will be managed by the Rockefeller-affiliated RF Catalytic Capital. About that 1956 Dartmouth conference: the Rockefeller Foundation backed it with a $7,500 grant — about $92,000 in today's dollars.

" In another 70 years, I wonder which efforts funded by the Cities Deliver project will look like they were pioneering innovations — and which might look like dead ends. com; (617) 412 0093;)