Timeline
From an evening in spring 2025
The dates, as far as the record shows them, from the warning to the work.
- Before retirement
Building dental insurance
By his own account, Bob, a Harvard-trained dentist, spent some forty years building the dental insurance industry: building an insurer's dental business from the ground up, founding a national dental network later acquired by a larger insurer, and teaching dental economics to dental students.
- 1969
A Harvard dentist
Robert Leaf graduated from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine with his DMD, as the school's own alumni news records. He went on to teach there.
- June 7, 2019
Harvard's Distinguished Alumni Award
At Alumni Day, the Harvard School of Dental Medicine gave Bob its Distinguished Alumni Award. He was, in the school's words, "recognized as an innovator in the field of dental insurance." Accepting it, he said: "This institution has the ability to inspire its graduates."
- Spring 2025
The warning
Comfortably retired, Bob heard some of AI's leading scientists and industry figures warn on television and online that AI could cause catastrophe. As he tells it, he "could not just sit by" and ended his retirement.
- Jul 2025 Beacon Harbor Capital
A blueprint on Nantucket
Yarin Kirchen spent several days with Bob on Nantucket. Bob asked him to build an investment strategy under strict rules, and, as Yarin later wrote, the first blueprint of what became Beacon Harbor Capital took shape there. The idea began as a way to fund Keep AI Safe's work.
- Aug 2025
Naming the mission
Bob's first emails give the mission names such as "Stop Human Extinction" and "HOPE — Humanity Over Profit and Extinction". When Yarin advised that "we need to walk before we can run", Bob agreed: "I frequently get ahead of myself."
- Aug 22, 2025 Keep AI Safe
Keep AI Safe is filed
Keep AI Safe Foundation, Inc. was filed with the Florida Secretary of State, and the keepaisafe.org domain followed on August 27. Yarin Kirchen is the foundation's Co-Founder and CEO.
- Aug 2025 Beacon Harbor Capital
The research begins
A quantitative researcher, Tyler Prahm, was engaged to build and test the strategy. His first agreement ran through the Keep AI Safe Foundation; the firm did not yet exist.
- Oct 2025
A new full-time job at 81
After AI-safety meetings that autumn, Bob wrote: "This is my new full time job. I am 81 and now working 12 hours a day 7 days a week." And, to a friend: "I have a new full time job 12 hours a day 7 days a week, and I have to pay to work there."
- Jan 2026 Keep AI Safe
Children's safety comes first
Bob suggested that children's online-safety groups should "all collaborate together".
- Feb 24, 2026 Beacon Harbor Capital
Why "Beacon Harbor"
Yarin Kirchen wrote "Why We Are Beacon Harbor Capital", a memo explaining the name, which comes from Nantucket: the beacon for signal discipline, the harbor for protection. By then he and Bob had decided to build the research into a firm, and then a fund.
- Early 2026 Boundlia
Safe AI Talking Toys
Bob and Evren Yiğit began shaping a company first called Safe AI Talking Toys, the idea that would later become Boundlia. From the start Bob wanted safety certification kept "completely arms length" from the toy company.
- Mar 24, 2026
Goals for the rest of his life
Bob set down "The Robert Leaf goals for the rest of his life": children's AI safety, medical discovery, civic safeguards, public AI literacy, and work on alignment and human purpose.
- Spring 2026 Medical Discoveries
Medical Discoveries takes shape
Bob began building Medical Discoveries with Dr. Christopher Voss around the idea of using AI to make hospital records usable for research. A first starter website was built at the end of April.
- May 22, 2026 Boundlia
Phase 1 begins
Phase 1 of the bounded children's platform began with the team Evren Yiğit had assembled.
- Late May 2026
Rome
At the invitation of a Catholic lay organization, Bob joined two days of panel discussions on AI in Rome.
- Jul 2026 Medical Discoveries
A method borrowed from his son
Bob credited research methods used by his son, Dr. David Leaf, a physician-scientist, as the inspiration for Medical Discoveries. That month the team gathered its planned hospital and research services into a list of ten, all at development stage.
- Jul 2026
Builders are responsible
Bob's principle that those who build AI are responsible for its good and harm came into focus: "You can not say I did so much good it is ok if I kill a few children."
- Jul 19, 2026 The Dignity Accords
An interfaith gathering
Bob first proposed gathering religious leaders of the world's traditions on the anniversary of the 2019 Document on Human Fraternity, and asked colleagues to pencil in February 4, 2027.
- Jul 20, 2026
A line for children under 13
Bob set out a conviction he has held to since: "for users under age 13 the only safe option is a bounded system."
- Jul 23, 2026 The Dignity Accords
"I call it the Dignity Accords"
Writing to colleagues, Bob gave the planned convening its name, insisting it "must be a meeting of equals." Two weeks later he stressed that the table was one he was working to assemble, "not one that has yet agreed."
- Jul 24, 2026 Beacon Harbor Capital
A firm of its own
Beacon Harbor Capital Management LLC was formed in Delaware. What had begun as a research engagement through the foundation now had a company of its own.
- Aug 2026 Boundlia
Phase 1 research
The Phase 1 research deliverables for the bounded children's platform were completed.
- Aug 2026
- Sep 3, 2026 Beacon Harbor Capital
Fund counsel engaged
Beacon Harbor engaged fund counsel to carry the firm from a plan to a fund.
- Sep 2026 Boundlia
A scripted demo at GITEX
The children's platform being developed by the team that became Boundlia was shown at GITEX AI Türkiye in Istanbul, in a scripted demonstration.
- Sep 2026 The Dignity Accords
A founding committee
Bob formed what he calls the Founding Committee of an International Body on AI Safety and began inviting interfaith leaders to join. "My goals have not changed. The urgency has."
- Sep 21, 2026
A proud father
Bob's son, Dr. David E. Leaf, a physician-scientist, was named the inaugural Director of Clinical Research in his hospital's nephrology division. Bob: "I am a very proud Dad."
- Sep 2026 Medical Discoveries
Careful words
The Medical Discoveries team settled on development-stage public wording: the company "is developing a clinical evidence platform to support research and hospital analytics."
- Sep 25, 2026
Paris
Bob attended events in Paris on AI and the human person, and called those days "transformative."
- Oct 5, 2026 The Dignity Accords
A draft declaration
Bob circulated a short draft passage for comment, opening with an affirmation that human responsibility does not end when we build a machine to act for us. It remains a draft, and no one has signed it.
- Oct 10–13, 2026
From Pugwash to AI Safety
With help from Claude, Bob wrote a short paper linking the 1955 Russell–Einstein warning and the Pugwash meetings of scientists that followed to today's AI-safety convenings, and sent it to family and friends: "We are doing this for our grandchildren and for yours."
- Oct 2026 Boundlia
Boundlia Inc. is formed
Boundlia Inc. was formed, around October 10, to carry the bounded children's platform forward. It remains in development.
- Oct 2026 Beacon Harbor Capital
January, not November
The fund's planned start was moved from November 2026 to January 2027, for tax and audit reasons, so that it begins with a clean year.
- Oct 14, 2026 Keep AI Safe
"We host and serve"
Bob proposed that Keep AI Safe host a call bringing leading U.S. children's-safety groups together around one shared goal. "We host and serve. We do not lead." It is a proposal; the invitation has not yet been sent.
- Oct 14, 2026 The Dignity Accords
Venue still open
Working drafts began to describe the planned February 4 convening in new terms. The venue has not been decided.
- Oct 14, 2026
- Oct 18, 2026
- Jan 4, 2027 (scheduled) Beacon Harbor Capital
The fund is scheduled to begin
Beacon Harbor's fund is scheduled to begin trading on January 4, 2027, the first trading day of the year. It is a schedule, not a commitment.
- Feb 4, 2027 (planned) The Dignity Accords
The Dignity Accords convening (planned)
Bob is working to assemble faith leaders and scientists for a convening, with a planned date of February 4, 2027 and a session devoted to children. The date is a plan, not a commitment. The venue is not settled, and no participant's attendance is confirmed.