AI for Human Progress

AI can help raise living standards. Michael Muthukrishna, CHP's Founding President, and Philip Schellekens of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) argue that its gains arrive first where skills, infrastructure and institutions are strongest.

Muthukrishna was principal author of The Next Great Divergence, a 2025 UNDP report on why AI may widen inequality between countries in Asia and the Pacific. It recommends first moves for countries at three levels of readiness for AI. He also led a review of how the world's governments set policy on AI in schools. Benjamin Rosman co-founded the Deep Learning Indaba, which works to strengthen machine learning across Africa. Sydney Levine and Muthukrishna plan to study how AI agents acting for different people can cooperate without harming others. They will test whether tools that sustain cooperation among people, such as reputation and penalties for people who fail to do their share, also work among AI agents.