My name is Mikhail Samin (@Mihonarium on Twitter/X, @misha on Telegram).
Humanity’s future can be enormous and awesome; losing it would mean our lightcone (and maybe the universe) losing most of its potential value.
I have takes on what seems to me to be the very obvious shallow stuff about the technical AI notkilleveryoneism; but many AI Safety researchers told me our conversations improved their understanding of the alignment problem.
I’m running two small nonprofits: AI Governance and Safety Institute and AI Safety and Governance Fund. Learn more about our results and donate: aisgf.us/fundraising
I took the Giving What We Can pledge to donate at least 10% of my income for the rest of my life or until the day I retire (why?).
In the past, I’ve launched the most funded crowdfunding campaign in the history of Russia (it was to print HPMOR! we printed 21 000 copies =63k books) and founded audd.io, which allowed me to donate >$100k to EA causes, including >$60k to MIRI.
[Less important: I’ve also started a project to translate 80,000 Hours, a career guide that helps to find a fulfilling career that does good, into Russian. The impact and the effectiveness aside, for a year, I was the head of the Russian Pastafarian Church: a movement claiming to be a parody religion, with 200 000 members in Russia at the time, trying to increase separation between religious organisations and the state. I was a political activist and a human rights advocate. I studied relevant Russian and international law and wrote appeals that won cases against the Russian government in courts; I was able to protect people from unlawful police action. I co-founded the Moscow branch of the “Vesna” democratic movement, coordinated election observers in a Moscow district, wrote dissenting opinions for members of electoral commissions, helped Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, helped Telegram with internet censorship circumvention, and participated in and organized protests and campaigns. The large-scale goal was to build a civil society and turn Russia into a democracy through nonviolent resistance. This goal wasn’t achieved, but some of the more local campaigns were successful. That felt important and was also mostly fun- except for being detained by the police. I think it’s likely the Russian authorities would imprison me if I ever visit Russia.]