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Center for Applied Rationality

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Center for Applied Rationality
Formation2012; 14 years ago (2012)
TypeNonprofit research institute
Legal status501(c)(3) tax exempt charity[1]
Location
Anna Salamon[2]
Websiterationality.org

The Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR) is a nonprofit organization based in Berkeley, California that hosts workshops on rationality and cognitive bias. It was founded in 2012 by Julia Galef, Anna Salamon, Michael Smith and Andrew Critch,[3][4] to improve participants' rationality using "a set of techniques from math and decision theory for forming your beliefs about the world as accurately as possible".[5] Its president is Anna Salamon.[2]

Activities

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CFAR began as a spin-off of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute.[6] It is part of the rationality movement surrounding Eliezer Yudkowsky's web site LessWrong, from which CFAR originated.[7] Paul Slovic and Keith Stanovich have served as advisors.[8]

In 2016, it announced that it would focus on improving the thinking skills of people working to reduce existential risk from artificial intelligence.[9]

According to CFAR, it held about 60 workshops from 2012 to early 2020 and began offering a revised program in 2025.[10] A scholarship funded by a co-founder of Skype, Jaan Tallinn, has been used to send selected Estonian students to workshops held by CFAR.[11] The group also taught classes for Facebook and the Thiel Fellowship.[6]

CFAR's training draws upon fields such as psychology and behavioral economics in an effort to improve people's mental habits. Writing in The New York Times Magazine in 2016, Jennifer Kahn found the techniques useful in changing her own habits, but criticized the workshop's groupthink, jargon and lack of privacy.[6] In 2016, Vice reported that a small randomized trial conducted by CFAR, involving 50 participants, found reduced neuroticism and increased self-efficacy among those who attended a workshop. The findings were based on surveys of participants and their loved ones.[3]

Sonoma County incident

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On November 15, 2019, four people dressed in Guy Fawkes masks were arrested for allegedly barricading off Westminster Woods, a wooded retreat where CFAR was holding an event. According to police, the suspects were uncooperative and spoke incoherently.[12] The protesters were associated with a splinter group of the rationalist movement that became known as the "Zizians".[13] Their flyers alleged that CFAR's leader "discriminates against trans women", and accused CFAR of not "appreciably develop[ing] novel rationality/mental tech".[13] By January 2025, people associated with the Zizians had been identified as suspects or persons of interest in an attempted murder in November 2022 and four killings in 2023 and 2025, including the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol officer in a shootout.[14] Two people associated with the group also died violently in these incidents.[13]

References

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  1. ↑ "Center for Applied Rationality". Guidestar. Retrieved March 31, 2015.
  2. 1 2 "Staff". Center for Applied Rationality. Retrieved September 23, 2026.
  3. 1 2 Matsakis, Louise (May 17, 2016). "The 'Rationality' Workshop That Teaches People to Think More Like Computers". Vice. Retrieved December 16, 2016.
  4. ↑ Segran, Elizabeth (October 21, 2014). "Inside the Rationality Movement That Has Silicon Valley Buzzing With Positive Thinking". Fast Company. Mansueto Ventures, LLC. Retrieved April 23, 2016.
    - Frank, Sam (January 2015). "Come With Us If You Want to Live: Among the apocalyptic libertarians of Silicon Valley". Harper's Magazine. Retrieved March 31, 2015.
  5. ↑ Dvorsky, George (November 2, 2012). "Why you're probably not as rational as you think you are — and what you can do about it". io9. Retrieved March 31, 2015.
  6. 1 2 3 Kahn, Jennifer (January 14, 2016). "The Happiness Code". The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved December 16, 2016.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  7. ↑ Chen, Angela (January 1, 2014). "More Rational Resolutions". The Wall Street Journal.
    - Jackson, Carl (September 8, 2012). "Why are smart people often so stupid?". Nerve Magazine (2): 18-23. Retrieved March 31, 2015 – via Issuu.
  8. ↑ Schubert, Stefan (2014). "The Center for Applied Rationality: practical techniques for overcoming biases". The Reasoner (12): 134-135. Retrieved July 4, 2017.
  9. ↑ Salamon, Anna (December 3, 2016). "CFAR's new focus, and AI Safety". Less Wrong.
  10. ↑ "Home". Center for Applied Rationality. Retrieved September 23, 2026.
  11. ↑ "Skype founder donates 54,000 euros to Tartu University". The Baltic Times. January 14, 2014. Retrieved March 31, 2015.
  12. ↑ Gafni, Mattias (November 18, 2019). "Mystery in Sonoma County after arrests of protesters in Guy Fawkes masks and robes". San Francisco Chronicle.
  13. 1 2 3 Ratliff, Evan (February 21, 2025). "The Delirious, Violent, Impossible True Story of the Zizians". Wired. Archived from the original on February 26, 2025. Retrieved February 26, 2025. They alleged that MIRI had "paid out blackmail (using donor funds)" to quash sexual misconduct accusations and that CFAR's leader "discriminates against trans women."...expressed outrage that MIRI's efforts to create human-friendly AI didn't seem to include other animals in the equation.
  14. ↑ Mandoli, Ava (January 31, 2025). "Maps and timeline clarify confusing 'Ziz' case linked to death of Bay Area landlord, five others". San Francisco Chronicle.
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