{"slug": "solving-the-worlds-hardest-problems-with-ai", "title": "Solving the Worlds Hardest Problems with AI", "summary": "The Consortium, an open research platform, is using AI assistance to address humanity's most under-studied problems, including pandemic risk, AI safety, and climate adaptation. Anyone can contribute research or fund the team, with all published work remaining freely available under permissive licenses. The initiative aims to solve coordination gaps that have left critical global issues without rigorous analysis.", "body_md": "# The world needs better answers to its hardest questions\n\nWe build peer-reviewed, openly licensed research on humanity’s most consequential problems. Anyone can contribute with AI assistance. Anyone can fund the team doing the work. Everything we publish is free for the world to use.\n\n### What's hot\n\n## Humanity’s biggest problems are chronically under-studied\n\nPandemic risk, AI safety, antibiotic resistance, climate adaptation, mass poverty — the issues that will shape the century receive a fraction of the rigorous analysis we devote to incremental research. The gap isn’t intellect. It’s coordination: good minds working in silos, without a shared map, a shared rubric, or a permanent home for their work.\n\nThe Consortium is that shared home — open, peer-reviewed, and built to outlast any single contributor.\n\n## Pick the path that fits you\n\nYou don’t need a PhD or a big bank account — just the will to move something forward.\n\n[Path 1](/how-it-works#contribute)\n\n### Contribute research\n\nPick a problem. Draft a document. Use our built-in AI assistant to research, outline, and refine your thinking. Submit it for peer review and become part of the permanent knowledge base.\n\n- Works with Claude, GPT, Gemini, and more — bring your own key\n- No invite required — anyone can start a draft\n- Accepted work is openly licensed and credited to you\n\n[Path 2](/how-it-works#fund)\n\n### Fund the work\n\nDon’t have time to write? Power the team that does. Your donation buys AI compute, peer-review time, and the infrastructure that keeps every published document free to read.\n\n- 80% of every dollar goes directly to AI research & compute\n- 15% keeps the platform open and running; 5% operations\n- Transparent allocation — reported publicly\n\n## Principles we won’t bend on\n\n### Open by default\n\nEvery accepted document is published under a permissive license. No paywalls, no subscription, no gatekeeping.\n\n### Evidence over opinion\n\nWe use the ITN framework (Importance, Tractability, Neglectedness) and structured peer review to keep rigor high.\n\n### Your keys, your data\n\nAI is bring-your-own-key. Your API credentials never leave your browser. We can’t read them; we don’t want to.\n\n## Nuclear Weapons & Disarmament\n\nThe world's ~12,500 nuclear warheads pose an existential threat to civilization. A large exchange between major powers could trigger nuclear\n\n[Explore this problem](/problems/nuclear-weapons)\n\n## Top priority problems\n\nRanked by Importance, Tractability, and Neglectedness.\n\n[View all 34](/problems)\n\n[1](/problems/global-health)\n\n### Global Health & Disease\n\nITN 24Preventable diseases kill millions annually. Malaria, tuberculosis, and neglected tropical diseases disproportionately affect the global poor despite cost-effective interventions existing.\n\n[2](/problems/engineered-pandemics)\n\n### Engineered Pandemics & Bioweapons\n\nITN 23Advances in synthetic biology lower the barrier to creating novel pathogens. A deliberately engineered pandemic could kill hundreds of millions and destabilize civilization.\n\n[3](/problems/factory-farming)\n\n### Factory Farming & Animal Welfare\n\nITN 23Over 80 billion land animals are raised in factory farms annually under conditions of severe suffering. Alternative proteins and welfare reforms offer tractable near-term interventions.\n\n[4](/problems/catastrophic-ai-misuse)\n\n### Catastrophic AI Misuse\n\nITN 22AI systems used deliberately by state or non-state actors for mass casualties via cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, autonomous weapons, or supercharged bioweapon design.\n\n[5](/problems/power-seeking-ai)\n\n### Power-Seeking AI Systems\n\nITN 21Advanced AI systems may develop instrumental goals around self-preservation and resource acquisition, undermining human oversight and potentially leading to irreversible loss of control.\n\n## Nothing about these problems solves itself.\n\nWhichever path fits your life right now, the Consortium is built so your effort compounds — every document, every dollar, every critique stays in the open for the next person to build on.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/solving-the-worlds-hardest-problems-with-ai", "canonical_source": "https://worldproblemssolved.com", "published_at": "2026-06-04 14:40:02+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-04 14:49:20.551463+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-safety", "ai-research", "ai-policy", "artificial-intelligence"], "entities": ["The Consortium"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/solving-the-worlds-hardest-problems-with-ai", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/solving-the-worlds-hardest-problems-with-ai.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/solving-the-worlds-hardest-problems-with-ai.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/solving-the-worlds-hardest-problems-with-ai.jsonld"}}