Raising science ambition: how to identify the highest-impact research for an AI world | Anastasia Gamick

Feb 4, 2026

Anastasia Gamick, co‑founder and CEO of Convergent Research, builds startup‑style teams to create public‑good scientific capabilities. She discusses Focused Research Organizations, high‑impact projects like synapse mapping and provably safe software, prioritizing defensive bio and AI tooling, and how scientists can find and fund work that matters most for an AI future.

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INSIGHT

Fundamentals Multiply Downstream Impact

Fundamental capabilities unlock many downstream outcomes across fields; funding them multiplies impact.
E11 Bio targets cheap synaptic-level brain mapping because it enables neuroscience, disease research, and AI-aligned studies.

ADVICE

Invest In Provable Software Safety

Build provably safe or formally verified software by investing in tools that automate mathematical proofs and check specifications.
Pair languages like Lean with automation to increase confidence that software does what designers intend.

INSIGHT

Exclude Dual-Use And Captureable Projects

Convergent avoids dual-use, purely academic, or obvious-for-profit projects to focus on defense-dominant, public-good capabilities.
They evaluate biosecurity risk, commercial viability, and vulnerability to AI obsolescence when selecting projects.

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Most scientists do “safe” research to secure their next grant. But what if more of them worked on the most important problems instead?

In this episode, we talk with Anastasia Gamick, co-founder of Convergent Research, about how to raise our level of ambition for what science can actually achieve.

Convergence Research incubates Focused Research Organizations: small, startup-style teams that build critical “public good” tech, which both academia and for-profits ignore.

We discuss:

What makes a research project truly high-impact in view of an AI world
Concrete examples of these projects: maps of brain synapses, software that’s provably safe, drug screening, good data for AI-powered scientific research, and more
How to prioritize defensive technology, such as biosafety tools, instead of just pushing every frontier as fast as possible
How young scientists can find the work that matters most for the future

[00:00] Cold open

[01:52] Introducing Anastasia Gamick and the mission of Convergent Research

[02:44] Defining Focused Research Organizations (FROs) and their unique characteristics

[09:46] Backcasting from 2075: what research to prioritize now to prepare for the intelligence age

[19:08] The four types of projects Convergent decides not to fund

[25:35] Biological and ecological dark matter: why we need better datasets for AI science

[28:28] Why academia and industry aren’t incentivized to build tech capabilities for the public good

[29:32] Defining “moonshot projects”: how boring drug screening creates massive downstream impact

[32:56] The future of neuroscience: capturing videos of synapses firing

[35:46] How the FRO model is catching on internationally

[36:25] Steering vs. accelerating: selecting defense-dominant technology

[41:22] Increasing human agency and how scientists can choose high-impact research areas

[46:51] The evolution of scientific funding and the role of new philanthropy

[48:05] Finding existential hope in the community of future-builders

On the Existential Hope Podcast hosts Allison Duettmann and Beatrice Erkers from the Foresight Institute invite scientists, founders, and philosophers for in-depth conversations on positive, high-tech futures.

Full transcript, listed resources, and more: https://www.existentialhope.com/podcasts

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