Key Researchers in AI Safety
This section profiles key researchers, thought leaders, and practitioners who have made significant contributions to AI safety, alignment, and governance. Their work spans technical research, strategy, policy, and institution-building.
Understanding Different Perspectives
Section titled “Understanding Different Perspectives”The AI safety field encompasses a wide range of views on critical questions. Timeline estimates for transformative AI range from 5 to 50+ years. Views on alignment difficulty span from “likely solvable with current approaches” to “extremely difficult, may require fundamental breakthroughs.” P(doom) estimates—the probability of existential catastrophe from AI—range from under 1% to over 50%. And strategic approaches differ on whether we should race to build safe AI first, slow down development, focus on governance, or pursue fundamental research.
Understanding who believes what and why is crucial for navigating the field’s key disagreements.
Researchers by Primary Affiliation
Section titled “Researchers by Primary Affiliation”Ilya Sutskever
Co-founder of Safe Superintelligence Inc., formerly Chief Scientist at OpenAI
Key Areas of Disagreement
Section titled “Key Areas of Disagreement”Different researchers hold varying positions on crucial questions:
Timeline Optimism vs. Pessimism
Section titled “Timeline Optimism vs. Pessimism”Shorter timeline views (AGI by 2030s) are held by Dario Amodei, Ilya Sutskever, and many at frontier labs. Medium timeline views (AGI by 2040s-2050s) are represented by Paul Christiano and Holden Karnofsky. Longer or more uncertain timelines are more common among academics and governance-focused researchers.
Alignment Difficulty
Section titled “Alignment Difficulty”More optimistic researchers like Dario Amodei, Jan Leike, and Paul Christiano believe alignment is solvable with iteration on current approaches. Moderately pessimistic views from Stuart Russell and Yoshua Bengio hold that major breakthroughs are needed. Very pessimistic positions, held by Eliezer Yudkowsky and some MIRI researchers, consider alignment extremely difficult and possibly not solvable in time.
Strategic Approach
Section titled “Strategic Approach”Researchers diverge on strategy. Anthropic and some OpenAI researchers favor racing to build safe AGI first. Geoffrey Hinton and some policy advocates push to slow down development. MIRI and some academics focus on fundamentals. FHI researchers and policy experts prioritize governance and coordination.
Contributing to the Field
Section titled “Contributing to the Field”These researchers represent various paths to contributing to AI safety. Technical research includes interpretability, alignment methods, and adversarial robustness. Conceptual work involves identifying new threat models and framing key problems. Empirical research tests alignment techniques on current systems. Institution building creates labs, research organizations, and governance bodies. Communication involves writing for different audiences and building field awareness. Funding directs resources to high-priority work.
Understanding their different approaches helps newcomers identify where they might contribute most effectively.