About TRAIL
TRAIL prepares BYU students from all disciplines to lead out in building a future where human-driven, agency-honoring, pluralistic AI helps all people flourish with dignity and capacity.
AI has enormous potential for both good and harm. At TRAIL, we seek to equip students to meet the challenges and opportunities related to the growth of AI, both present and potential. We're optimistic that AI can be a tool to make the world better, but only if we take seriously our responsibility to build the future we want and to steer clear of catastrophic risk.
Who we are
At TRAIL, we bring students from across campus together for weekly facilitated discussions on what AI can do, what can go wrong, and what it takes to get it right.
Whether you come from law, policy, economics, philosophy, political science, biology, CS, or anything else — and whether you already have AI safety/security experience, or you've never heard of the field until now — you're welcome at TRAIL! AI safety is a multidisciplinary problem.
This semester, we're starting out with a career prep fellowship meant to introduce future AI safety/security leaders to the most important problems in the field, what is being done to solve them, and how to get involved. In the future, we also hope to start focus groups — and eventually further fellowships — centered on technical, policy, economic, and other aspects of AI safety/security.
Although discussion and education are key to our aims, we also seek to give students practical help through connections to mentors, conferences, labs, fellowships, and peers. Our goal is to train BYU students to be responsible leaders who can understand and eventually work in AI safety.
What we value
- Agency
One of the most concerning dangers of AI is the temptation it provides to outsource our agency — our privilege and ability to choose — to a large language model. We believe AI should honor human agency and make it easier, not harder, to exercise it.
Additionally, we believe that a world where AI is a force for good will not happen by chance. On the contrary, allowing the development of AI (and the norms and policy surrounding it) to drift down the path of least resistance will certainly lead to negative and potentially catastrophic outcomes. Deliberate exercise of agency is essential for charting a course to a future where AI plays a positive role. This means we aim to be more than a discussion group or debate club; we also want to equip students with skills and connections to enable them to actively help craft solutions to the many challenges AI brings.
- Pluralism
The challenges of AI alignment naturally raise questions about what AI's moral compass will look like, who gets to shape it, and how. In solving this problem, we believe it is essential to bring together people from a diversity of backgrounds, faith traditions, and deeply held beliefs to find common ground, collaborate, and disagree respectfully. In that spirit, we welcome a diversity of backgrounds and beliefs at TRAIL and seek fairness for all in the development, regulation, and use of AI.
- Clear-Eyed Optimism
We aim to remain open-minded and hopeful about the benefits of AI, while keeping our eyes open to its dangers.
- Asking Hard Questions
Thorny problems abound everywhere AI touches our lives — policy, regulation, faith, security, economics, and more. Rather than shy away from difficult questions, we want to bring them into the light and get to work fixing them.
- Faith
As a group associated with a Christian university, we seek to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, including the call to strive to influence the world for good, to see every human being as a child of God, and treat each person with love and respect. In keeping with this, we want to help AI develop in a way that honors the dignity and infinite worth of all people.
In addition to drawing on the best that science and research can offer, we believe AI development should also draw on the wealth of diverse religious teaching and tradition followed by billions of people around the world.
“Pluralistically portraying faith traditions accurately, honestly, and respectfully does not privilege one faith tradition over another, or belief over nonbelief. It does not seek to convert individuals. It does not adjudicate faith claims. … The world's great religious, philosophical, and ethical traditions have guided human civilization and society for millennia. We need that wisdom and those values to anchor AI today.”