Nick Bostrom is a Swedish philosopher and professor at the University of Oxford. He was born on March 10, 1973, in Helsingborg, Sweden. Bostrom is known for his work on existential risks, transhumanism, and the philosophy of [[artificial intelligence (AI)]]. Bostrom earned degrees in philosophy from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and the London School of Economics. In 2005, Bostrom founded the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford, where he serves as founding director. The institute focuses on studying the long-term future of humanity, with an emphasis on existential risks, technological progress, and global catastrophic events. [[William MacAskill]] is a research fellow at the Institute and an acolye of Bostrom's. ## Bostrom and Longtermism Along with MacAskill, Bostrom is an advocate of [[Longtermism]], the branch of [[Effective Altruism (EA)]] that alleges we ought to forget about the problems of the poor and elevate the rich, because they are more likely to get us to the point of colonizing the stars with a dystopian idea of The Matrix.