Alexander Siegenfeld

Characterizing the properties and constraints of complex systems and their external interactions.

Alexander is a 5th-year graduate student in physics at MIT, and he wants to conduct independent deconfusion research for AI safety. His goal is to get a better conceptual understanding of multi-level world models by coming up with better formalisms for analyzing complex systems at differing levels of scale, building off of the work of Yaneer Bar-Yam. (Yaneer is Alexander’s advisor, and the president of the New England Complex Science Institute.)

I decided to recommend funding to Alexander because I think his research directions are promising, and because I was personally impressed by his technical abilities and his clarity of thought. Tsvi Benson-Tilsen, a MIRI researcher, was also impressed enough by Alexander to recommend that the Fund support him. Alexander plans to publish a paper on his research; it will be evaluated by researchers at MIRI, helping him decide how best to pursue further work in this area.

Potential conflict of interest: Alexander and I have been friends since our undergraduate years at MIT.