On January 1st, 2026, I started focusing full time on technical alignment research.
Well, to be more accurate, I started laying the groundwork for doing technical alignment research. Although I have a solid and deep technical background, mostly in computer science and software engineering, my background is not very wide and was missing a bunch of important pieces. So the year so far has involved a lot more studying than thinking new thoughts at the frontier.
I’m working with John Wentworth on natural abstractions. It’s my full time job to understand what he’s been up to, but it’s just a side gig for him to explain it to me. A few hours of explanations from him gives me ~a week of material to chew on.
As I’ve been building all these background models, I’ve discovered that John has a lot of information and thought-structures built up in his head that he’s never properly written down or explained. One of my tasks this year will be to write those down properly and post them here.
I mostly think of those write-ups as prelude to the real work, but you never know. Sometimes when you take the time to write down your background models, you realize that there was a missing or slightly off-kilter piece, and fixing that up leads to new insights. We’ll see.
Yes, that’s right. I managed/grew the comms team for about a year and a half, and then I supported Eliezer through the process of writing, editing, and launching If Anyone Builds It. When the book launch was over I found myself wildly underutilized and wishing for much more to do. As a technical and autistic nerd, I was always better suited to working on mathy problems than on communicating with neurotypicals anyway. It’s good to be back on the tech side of things.
Huh, I always got the feeling from MIRI that “alignment is really hard, we have to do a pause to have any chance of succeeding”. I’m kind of surprised to see that MIRI is investing effort into doing technical alignment research.
1) MIRI never stopped doing technical alignment research, actually! It’s just a much smaller part of the portfolio than it used to be. The majority of the focus is now on comms and policy. We do still need both, though; we don’t want to halt AI research forever, so we’re going to need a technical alignment solution.
2) I no longer work at MIRI at all, I left (amicably!) near the beginning of the year. I’m independent, and eagerly awaiting word on my SFF application.
On January 1st, 2026, I started focusing full time on technical alignment research.
Well, to be more accurate, I started laying the groundwork for doing technical alignment research. Although I have a solid and deep technical background, mostly in computer science and software engineering, my background is not very wide and was missing a bunch of important pieces. So the year so far has involved a lot more studying than thinking new thoughts at the frontier.
I’m working with John Wentworth on natural abstractions. It’s my full time job to understand what he’s been up to, but it’s just a side gig for him to explain it to me. A few hours of explanations from him gives me ~a week of material to chew on.
As I’ve been building all these background models, I’ve discovered that John has a lot of information and thought-structures built up in his head that he’s never properly written down or explained. One of my tasks this year will be to write those down properly and post them here.
I mostly think of those write-ups as prelude to the real work, but you never know. Sometimes when you take the time to write down your background models, you realize that there was a missing or slightly off-kilter piece, and fixing that up leads to new insights. We’ll see.
Writing down other people’s thoughts is an underrated activity!
I’m excited to hear this! Looking forward to seeing what you do, and to reading more of John’s natural abstractions thoughts :)
Good luck!
What prompted you to pivot? If I recall correctly you were working on comms for MIRI before this.
Yes, that’s right. I managed/grew the comms team for about a year and a half, and then I supported Eliezer through the process of writing, editing, and launching If Anyone Builds It. When the book launch was over I found myself wildly underutilized and wishing for much more to do. As a technical and autistic nerd, I was always better suited to working on mathy problems than on communicating with neurotypicals anyway. It’s good to be back on the tech side of things.
Huh, I always got the feeling from MIRI that “alignment is really hard, we have to do a pause to have any chance of succeeding”. I’m kind of surprised to see that MIRI is investing effort into doing technical alignment research.
1) MIRI never stopped doing technical alignment research, actually! It’s just a much smaller part of the portfolio than it used to be. The majority of the focus is now on comms and policy. We do still need both, though; we don’t want to halt AI research forever, so we’re going to need a technical alignment solution.
2) I no longer work at MIRI at all, I left (amicably!) near the beginning of the year. I’m independent, and eagerly awaiting word on my SFF application.
What’s your estimate of technical alignment research FTEs at MIRI at the time of your departure?
That’s not for me to answer, sorry.
I’m looking forward to reading these!