Why do you care about AI Existential Safety?

Both my work and the philanthropic contributions my wife & I make are dedicated to reducing x-risk and s-risk. Our x-risk work is focused on funding AGI alignment and advocating for nuclear disarmament, and our s-risk work is focused on the reduction of wild animal suffering as well as phasing out factory farming. In order to get more funding into the field of AGI alignment, I started a company called Preamble (preamble.com) which is focused in the near term on recommender system alignment, but in the future will focus on AGI alignment as AGI becomes closer on the horizon. I am a father and I care deeply about creating a world where my young son does not have to fear AGI x-risk.

Please give one or more examples of research interests relevant to AI existential safety:

I am the lead researcher on a project hoping to prove (via simulations) that severe x-risk would inevitably arise from automating strategic nuclear warfare, with the aim of persuading all nations that any attempt to automate strategic warfare would harm their own self-interest by increasing global x-risk. In addition to this original research, I have dedicated significant time and funding into lobbying the US government to attempt to strength US policies prohibiting AI-based automation of nuclear warfare. Through this work I have built a network of contacts in the Dept. of Defense who are beginning to understand that military command automation may be self-defeating and should be significantly limited. I have helped shape US doctrine around this topic, including contributing to a public statement by the NSCAI (nscai.gov) that “The United States should make a clear, public statement that decisions to authorize nuclear weapons employment must only be made by humans, not by an AI-enabled or autonomous system, and should include such an affirmation in the DoD’s next Nuclear Posture Review.”