This is suspicious. There might be good reasons, but given the historical pattern of:
Funder with poor track record on existential safety funds new “safety” lab
“Safety” lab attracts well-intentioned talent
“Safety” lab makes everything worse
I’m worried that your funder is one of the many, many people with financial stakes in capabilities and reputational stakes in pretending to look good. The specific research direction does not fill me with hope on this front, as it kinda seems like something a frontier lab might want to fund.
Our funder is not affiliated with a frontier lab and has provided us support with no expectation of financial returns. We have also had full freedom to shape our research goals (within the broad agreed-upon scope of “LLM agent safety”).
This is suspicious. There might be good reasons, but given the historical pattern of:
Funder with poor track record on existential safety funds new “safety” lab
“Safety” lab attracts well-intentioned talent
“Safety” lab makes everything worse
I’m worried that your funder is one of the many, many people with financial stakes in capabilities and reputational stakes in pretending to look good. The specific research direction does not fill me with hope on this front, as it kinda seems like something a frontier lab might want to fund.
Our funder is not affiliated with a frontier lab and has provided us support with no expectation of financial returns. We have also had full freedom to shape our research goals (within the broad agreed-upon scope of “LLM agent safety”).
Thanks for the clarification, that’s good to hear.