Project summary

Provide travel and registration funding for me, a co-author of 'Non-maximizing policies that fulfill multi-criterion aspirations in expectation', to attend and present at the 8th International Conference on Algorithmic Decision Theory.

What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?

Improve the safety of AI systems, by promoting the idea of and encouraging further work into non-maximising, aspiration-based agents as a means to avoid some of the risk from reward misspecification. Also, more people producing work relevant to AI safety, from multiple different backgrounds, increases the number of insights, and the authority within AI safety.

Help the authors gain insights and feedback to enhance the SatisfIA project and our work on designing safe AI agents, and expand our network. This would be especially helpful for me, the attendee, who is an early-career researcher.

How will this funding be used?

Round trip flights: $800

Travel between airport, accommodation and conference: $115

Conference registration fee: $150

Food: $50

Buffer: ~5%

(Accommodation funding has already been secured).

Who is on your team? What's your track record on similar projects?

The authors of the paper are Simon Dima, Simon Fischer, Jobst Heitzig and me, Joss Oliver (the prospective attendee).

I graduated with a First-Class Honours degree in Pure Mathematics (MMath). Since September 2023, I have completed three AI safety internships with MARS and SPAR and have just completed the Pivotal Research Fellowship. During my SPAR internship, I collaborated with Jobst Heitzig, resulting in the research paper to be presented.

I have not presented at a conference before, but believe I have developed the necessary skills. For example, during my current Pivotal Fellowship, I have received positive feedback for my presentations and have effectively networked and discussed my work with peers and senior researchers. Preparations for the conference will also be supported by the very experienced Jobst Heitzig.

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?

My attendance may not impact the work of researchers at the conference. This could be because:

• the topic of non-maximizing, aspiration-based agents may not resonate with a large portion of the conference attendees working in many different aspects of AI or algorithmic decision theory.

• I may not communicate the ideas as effectively as more experienced presenters, potentially leading to misunderstandings or a lack of engagement.

If my travel and registration is not funded, I will not be able to afford attending and the paper may be withdrawn from the conference (the other authors are not available to attend). Funding this would ensure the paper gets published.

What other funding are you or your project getting?

I have an open application to Open Philanthropy.