Currently growing the AI alignment research field at Machine Alignment, Transparency, and Security (MATS) Research and supporting the London Initiative for Safe AI (LISA). Previously, I completed a PhD in Physics at the University of Queensland and ran an Effective Altruism student group for ~3 years.

My ethics are largely preference utilitarian and cosmopolitan. I'm deeply concerned about near-term x-risk and safeguarding the long-term future. I see Manifund as an opportunity to fund public benefit research into high-impact cause areas that lack adequate incentive mechanisms.

My grantmaking prioirites include:

• Neglected AI safety interventions with a good safety/capabilities trade-off (i.e., R&D that might not be near-term commerically beneficial, but "raises the AI safety waterline");

• Democratic governance mechanisms for monitoring and regulating dangerous "black-ball" technology, especially in AI and synthetic biology;

• Building "defence in depth" and "civilization resilience" to systemic risk factors, especially in regards to AI accident/misuse, pandemics, great power war, and totalitarianism.

In addition to general grantmaking, I have requests for proposals in the following areas:

• Funding for AI safety PhDs (e.g., with these supervisors), particularly in exploratory research connecting AI theory with empirical ML research.

• An AI safety PhD advisory service that helps prospective PhD students choose a supervisor and topic (similar to Effective Thesis, but specialized for AI safety).

• Initiatives to critically examine current AI safety macrostrategy (e.g., as articulated by Holden Karnofsky) like the Open Philanthropy AI Worldviews Contest and Future Fund Worldview Prize.

• Initiatives to identify and develop "Connectors" outside of academia (e.g., a reboot of the Refine program, well-scoped contests, long-term mentoring and peer-support programs).

• Physical community spaces for AI safety in AI hubs outside of the SF Bay Area or London (e.g., Japan, France, Bangalore).

• Start-up incubators for projects, including for-profit evals/red-teaming/interp companies, that aim to benefit AI safety, like Catalyze Impact, Future of Life Foundation, Entrepeneur First def/acc, and YCombinator's request for explainable AI start-ups.

• Initiatives to develop and publish expert consensus on AI safety macrostrategy cruxes, such as the Existential Persuasion Tournament and 2023 Expert Survey on Progress in AI (e.g., via the Delphi method, interviews, surveys, etc.).

• New nonprofit startups that aim to benefit AI safety (e.g., Apollo Research, ARC, CAIP, CAIS, CLR, FAR.AI, METR, MIRI, Redwood Research, Simplex, Timaeus, Transluce).