We're hiring! May be a good fit for you if you're excited about:
* Working on frontier AI issues (specific examples in the job description)
* Joining a team with a range of interests & expertise
* Bringing data, evidence, & nuance to policy conversations about frontier AI

Open until Nov 10:

AI companies are starting to build more and more personalization into their products, but there's a huge personalization-sized hole in conversations about AI safety/trust/impacts.

Delighted to feature @mbogen.bsky.social on Rising Tide today, on what's being built and why we should care:

AI companies are starting to promise personalized assistants that “know you.” We’ve seen this playbook before — it didn’t end well.

In a guest post for @hlntnr.bsky.social’s Rising Tide, I explore how leading AI labs are rushing toward personalization without learning from social media’s mistakes

Been thinking recently about how central "AI is just a tool" is to disagreements about the future of AI. Is it? Will it continue to be?

Just posted a transcript from a talk where I go into this + a couple other key open qs/disagreements (not p(doom)!).

🔗 below, preview here:

2 weeks left on this open funding call on risks from internal deployments of frontier AI models—submissions are due June 30.

Expressions of interest only need to be 1-2 pages, so still time to write one up!

Full details: cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/u...

💡Funding opportunity—share with your AI research networks💡

Internal deployments of frontier AI models are an underexplored source of risk. My program at @csetgeorgetown.bsky.social just opened a call for research ideas—EOIs due Jun 30.

Full details ➡️ cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/u...

Summary ⬇️

Criticizing the AI safety community as anti-tech or anti-risktaking has always seemed off to me. But there *is* plenty to critique. My latest on Rising Tide (xposted with @aifrontiers.bsky.social!) is on the 1998 book that helped me put it into words.

In short: it's about dynamism vs stasis.

New on Rising Tide, I break down 2 factors that will play a huge role in how much AI progress we see over the next couple years: verification & generalization.

How well these go will determine if AI just gets super good at math & coding vs. mastering many domains. Post excerpts:

2 new podcast interviews out in the last couple weeks—one for more of a general audience, one more inside baseball.

You can also pick your accent (I'm from Australia and sound that way when I talk to other Aussies, but mostly in professional settings I sound ~American)

Seems likely that at some point AI will make it much easier to hack critical infrastructure, create bioweapons, etc etc. Many argue that if so, a hardcore nonproliferation strategy is our only option.

Rising Tide launch week post 3/3 is on why I disagree 🧵

helentoner.substack.com/p/nonprolife...

The idea of AI "alignment" seems increasingly confused—is it about content moderation or controlling superintelligence? Is it basically solved or wide open?

Rising Tide #2 is about how we got here, and how the core problem is whether we can steer advanced AI at all.

Sharing the very first post on my new substack, about the weird boiling frog of AI timelines. Somehow expecting human-level systems in the 2030s is now a conservative take?

2 more posts to come this week, then a slower pace. Subscribe, tell your friends!

helentoner.substack.com/p/long-timel...

⭐️New Report⭐️

Using AI to make military decisions?

CSET’s @emmyprobasco.bsky.social, @hlntnr.bsky.social, Matthew Burtell, and @timrudner.bsky.social analyze the advantages and risks of AI for military decisionmaking. cset.georgetown.edu/publication/...

New short paper from Kendrea Beers and me - 2 case studies of @openmined.bsky.social's great work giving researchers/auditors/etc access to test privately held AI models.

Thread with more on the two successful pilots below. Paper is here: arxiv.org/abs/2502.05219

Lately it sometimes feels like there are only 2 AI futures on the table—insanely fast progress or total stagnation.

Talked with @axios.com's Alison Snyder at SXSW about the many in-between worlds, and all the things we can be doing now to help things go better in those worlds.

New podcast ep! Had fun talking US-China competition, military AI, and more with @spencrgreenberg.bsky.social:

podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/251/...

Even spent a few min at the end on something I rarely get to ramble about: what I've learned about relating to humans from working with horses🐴

Due in 2 days (!): comments on v2 of the EU's draft Code of Practice for general-purpose AI.

For anyone else who'd find it helpful, here's a side-by-side comparison with v1:
draftable.com/compare/NNBy...

One snap take: the rewritten taxonomy of systemic risks (p29) is much stronger.

Happy almost-2025! 🎇

To ring in the new year, here's a short thread with some things I read recently that I've found myself coming back to:

Probably time to break the ice and post something here, huh. Hi Bluesky!

I'm on parental leave so not really doing social media, but Fast Company profiled me today and that was nice:
www.fastcompany.com/91237841/hel...

And I'll drop some of my recent work below 🧵: