some quick thoughts on how to found an independent lab observer organization 1) if we are on the path to recursive self improvement, independent lab observer organizations may become very influential 2) there are a lot of people that would like to see a lab observer organization that comes from outside the metr, apollo, redwood research orbit 3) this is not because these organizations are bad, they were there early, are well-funded, have expertise, but they all come from a single cultural milieu 4) the first question is who should found such an organization; the most important thing is that the founder be credible 5) this means that the founder should be either a tech founder, a policy expert or an ai researcher; the founder may be an academic as well 6) if the founder is a policy expert, the founder should recruit an ai researcher to be chief scientist from the start as a co-founder of the organization 7) the next important thing is to get into contact with the labs; i think the most important lab to contact first is openai; you want to be in the conversation 8) you can do this while you assemble the team; what you want is a soft agreement from the lab to include you in the initial announcement, assuming you get the team 9) next, you need a funder; I think a lot of people would like to fund a for-profit here, but I think at the time scales we are operating, this org should be non-profit 10) because it makes it easier to get the initial donors, and it lets the organization become more influential on the long term with government, etc... 11) if i were looking for funders, i would start with ecosystems that are online enough to know that this is a real conversation, but not within the ea ecosystem 12) if these funders are unavailable, then i would go to the ea funders, and ask for funding; you could look to diversify your funding sources later 13) i think there is a reasonable chance they would see the benefit of something outside their ecosystem; and, would be willing to fund you; to make the other lab observers more palatable to critics 14) after the funding and initial agreement were pulled together, then i would look to expand the team, interview roles, etc... 15) you will have a lot of talented interest, once you have the agreement and funding, and a lot of people will want to join such an opportunity