Photo: AlexanderHoekstra, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons⁹

Preston Estep

AI and Genome Scientist

Preston "Pete" Wayne Estep III (born 1960) is an American biologist and science and technology advocate. He is a graduate of Cornell University, where he did neuroscience research, and he earned a Ph.D. in Genetics from Harvard University.²

From Wikipedia’s article on Preston Estep (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Born Nov 23, 1960.¹

About

He did his doctoral research in the laboratory of genomics pioneer Professor George M. Church at Harvard Medical School.

Estep is an inventor of several technologies including DNA chip-based readout of transposon-based selections and universal DNA protein-binding microarrays (PBMs). He is Director of Gerontology and an adviser to the Personal Genome Project, the first "open-source" genome project founded by George Church and based at Harvard Medical School. He is one of the main subjects of the documentary film Reconvergence.

Estep was the Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Veritas Genetics. He is one of the scientific experts featured throughout the first season of the Netflix series Unnatural Selection. In the show, Estep says it is important to obtain genomic information from extraordinary people. Subsequently, he tests the recall abilities of memory champion Nelson Dellis, and then the two tour a genetics lab and observe large DNA sequencing machines as they discuss sequencing Dellis's genome.

Early in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic Estep founded the Rapid Deployment Vaccine Collaborative (RaDVaC), an open source vaccine project that controversially featured vaccine self administration.

From Wikipedia’s article on Preston Estep, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.²

Companies

Veritas GeneticsFounder⁸

Early life and education

Date not recordedCornell University³
Date not recordedHarvard Medical School³

Career

Occupation: scientist.⁶

Date not recordedWorked at Harvard Medical School⁴
Date not recordedFounded Veritas Genetics⁵

Personal life

CitizenshipUnited States⁷

Philanthropy

Estep is a founder and chief scientist of the Mind First Foundation, a non-profit chartered to articulate and expand the civilizational benefit of intelligence. In 2008, Estep presented at the Singularity Summit, proposing that brain-computer interface technology could help control AI. In 2014, Estep co-authored The Leverage and Centrality of Mind, an award-winning essay originally for the Foundational Questions Institute, arguing in favor of intelligence being the most important tool for solving significant challenges faced by humanity.

In a 2024 paper in "AI & Society", Estep examined assumptions underlying predictions of an artificial-intelligence takeover, arguing that some such scenarios rely excessively on anthropomorphic comparisons between AI systems and biological organisms. He identified eight attributes of digital AI that distinguish it from biological intelligence and argued that these differences could affect the development of instrumental goals, competition, and human–AI relations.

Estep also published a review of Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares's book "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies" in the journal "SuperIntelligence – Robotics – Safety & Alignment". In his review, Estep challenged arguments that sufficiently advanced AI would necessarily develop self-interested goals leading to human extinction, and argued that advanced AI could instead play an important role in protecting humanity from risks posed by humans or other AI systems.

In 2026, Estep introduced what he termed the "instrumental succession" thesis in a paper published in the journal "Frontiers in Psychology". The instrumental succession thesis proposes that substantial control over human affairs could shift gradually to AI, even without AI systems developing an overriding terminal goal; human users and organizations may progressively increase AI capabilities and delegate decisions to them, resulting in an incremental transfer of agency. Estep contrasted this process with traditional theories of instrumental convergence and proposed continued human–AI integration as one possible response to risks of both human extinction and human irrelevance.