Working with me

Thanks for your interest in working with me! If you’re already a full-time researcher, I’m happy to chat about potential collaborations; please reach out directly.

If you’re an undergraduate or master’s student, the entry point for any kind of interaction with me is a fifteen-minute meeting, in person if at all possible. I’d like to hear directly from you what I can help you with.

I’m specifically interested in helping students get into AI safety and alignment research. That can generally mean two things:

• Advice on how to get into safety/alignment research, such as what to read, how to complete a project, how to approach researchers, or how to apply to grad schools; or
• Collaboration on a research project that I mentor.

You don’t need to prepare for the meeting; however, you should be able to briefly explain why you’re interested in doing research in safety or alignment.

Setting up a meeting: email me with your resume and a few times you’re free (I prefer weekday afternoons). The default will be an in-person meeting; let me know if you must do a video call for any reason, and we can do that instead. I will respond with a time and a room.

If you’re looking to collaborate, please note first that I only supervise students on new rather than existing projects, so each project is a big commitment for me and I can only take them on occasionally; I may simply tell you that I do not have time. If I decide after the meeting that there’s a good fit, I will follow up with a small task and an invitation for a second, longer meeting; I will ask you to read and understand my separate page detailing how I run student research projects and make sure that you can commit the time required. If the second meeting also goes well, we may start a project.

Finally, I do these as time allows. My replies may sometimes take a while, and occasionally I’ll have to decline.