Ryan Kidd

Jan 13, 2025 | lesswrong.com | Ryan Kidd

With the release of OpenAI's o1 and o3 models, it seems likely that we are now contending with a new scaling paradigm: spending more compute on model inference at run-time reliably improves model performance. As shown below, o1's AIME accuracy increases at a constant rate with the logarithm of test-time compute (OpenAI, 2024).

Jan 9, 2025 | lesswrong.com | Daniel Filan |Ryan Kidd

MATS currently has more people interested in being mentors than we are able to support—for example, for the Winter 2024-25 Program, we received applications from 87 prospective mentors who cumulatively asked for 223 scholars (for a cohort where we expected to only accept 80 scholars). As a result, we need some process for how to choose which researchers to take on as mentors and how many scholars to allocate each.

Oct 8, 2024 | lesswrong.com | Laura Vaughan |Christian Smith |Ryan Kidd

If you are interested in supporting the development of research projects and researchers in AI safety, the MATS team is currently hiring for Community Manager, Research Manager, and Operations Generalist roles and would love to hear from you. Please apply by Nov 3 to join our team for the Winter 2024-25 Program over the period of Dec 9-Apr 11. Most open roles have the possibility of long-term extension depending on performance and program needs.

Oct 7, 2024 | lesswrong.com | Daniel Filan |Ryan Kidd

As part of our Summer 2024 Program, MATS ran a series of discussion groups focused on questions and topics we believe are relevant to prioritizing research into AI safety. Each weekly session focused on one overarching question, and was accompanied by readings and suggested discussion questions.

Jun 23, 2024 | lesswrong.com | Ryan Kidd

I recently gave a talk to the AI Alignment Network (ALIGN) in Japan on my priorities for AI safety fieldbuilding based on my experiences at MATS and LISA (slides, recording). A lightly edited talk transcript is below. I recommend this talk to anyone curious about the high level strategy that motivates projects like MATS. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to delve into rebuttals and counter-rebuttals to our theory of change; this will have to wait for another talk/post.