Legal Advocates for Safe Science and Technology (LASST)

LASST works through US courts and public advocacy to help push the development of emerging science and technology in a positive direction. We focus primarily on mitigating catastrophic risks from advanced artificial intelligence systems and biotechnology, but we pride ourselves on being practical and responsive.

What we've been up to:

Public advocacy on AI 

• We helped organize the Not For Private Gain advocacy coalition, advocating to the Attorneys General of California and Delaware to protect OpenAI’s charitable mission (ensuring artificial general intelligence is safe and benefits all of humanity) from being undermined by the company’s corporate restructuring. Our work helped convince OpenAI to back off its original restructuring proposal and commit to continued nonprofit control, and we continue to advocate for even better outcomes from a safety perspective. 
• We dug into the corporate filings of xAI, revealing that despite what it has said to at least one court and the public, it is no longer a public benefit corporation. The revelation shows that AI companies organizing as PBCs (including OpenAI) is not a robust way to ensure safe AI systems.

Developing and filing amicus briefs

• We pulled together a coalition of respected virologists, epidemiologists and public health professionals to file amicus briefs in COVID-origins litigation advocating for outcomes that will deter irresponsibly dangerous research involving pathogens with enhanced pandemic potential.  
• We helped write the amicus brief Encode filed in the Musk v. Altman litigation, reframing OpenAI’s restructuring as a public interest AI safety issue and catalyzing anti-restructuring public advocacy work. 

Litigation surveillance and research 

• We track what courts are doing on AI and biosafety so we can better advocate in the context of evolving case law (like Mobley v. Workday’s holding on deployer liability for the actions of AI agents or Garcia v. Character Technologies addressing whether the First Amendment protects chatbot outputs). This helps us find cases where amicus briefs can help influence key judicial decisions or new precedents can be incorporated into impact litigation interventions.
• We’re always doing fact research designed to support legal interventions, including filing public records requests under FOIA and state analogs.