Kai Sandbrink

DPhil project in AI that addresses safety concerns in ML algorithms and positions Kai to work on China-West AI relations.

We are funding Kai for his PhD in Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford. Kai intends to focus on improving reinforcement learning algorithms with approaches inspired by cognitive science. Prior to starting his PhD, Kai completed an MS in Neural Systems and Computation at ETH Zurich and an MA in China Studies at Peking University.

I expect most of the impact from this grant to come from the PhD program being good preparation for Kai's future career. Kai is interested in continuing to perform AI research, and this seems like a good pathway into it given his existing background in neuroscience. Additionally, it is possible his PhD research will increase the robustness of RL agents that could directly improve AI safety, although I find the case for this tenuous (and it is not the primary motivation for the research project).

Additionally, Kai has a strong interest in China, and is hoping to spend some of his PhD at Peking University. I generally expect greater collaboration and understanding between Chinese and Western AI researchers to be positive for both sides. Many problems in AI safety are necessarily global: in the extreme case, one actor deploying a powerful but misaligned AI system could cause a global catastrophe. I expect increased communication between AI researchers in different countries to help prevent this, both by enabling the sharing of relevant safety techniques and by helping to develop shared standards or regulation for this technology.