Alexis Carlier

Surveying experts on AI risk scenarios and working on other projects related to AI safety.

We awarded Alexis $5,000, primarily to support his work on a survey aimed at identifying the arguments and related beliefs motivating top AI safety and governance researchers to work on reducing existential risk from AI.

I think the views of top researchers in the AI risk space have a strong effect on the views and research directions of other effective altruists. But as of now, only a small and potentially unrepresentative set of views exist in written form, and many are stated in imprecise ways. I am hopeful that a widely-taken survey will fill this gap and have a strong positive effect on future research directions.

I thought Alexis's previous work on the principal-agent literature and AI risk was useful and thoughtfully done, and showed that he was able to collaborate with prominent researchers in the space. This collaboration, as well as details of the application, suggested to me that the survey questions would be written with lots of input from existing researchers, and that Alexis was likely to be able to get widespread survey engagement.

Since recommending this grant, I have seen the survey circulated and taken it myself. I thought it was a good survey and am excited to see the results.