Coauthor of the Emergent Misalignment paper, Daniel Tan, used to get burnout lasting weeks or months until our work from June to August 2025. After he naturally stopped doomscrolling ~5h/day, he’s used the time to host events for friends.
Founding engineer at a well-known lab shared hard feedback he’d been withholding with the founders, helping nudge the company in the direction he wanted.
Frontier lab researcher went from avoiding conflict with respected colleagues to challenging them. Over 18mo later he still does this, and now he runs his own team.
I research how ASI researchers increase their impact by removing internal bottlenecks.
I value lasting results, speed, and reliability.
Phase 1: One to two weeks, learn how to feel internal incentives and engage them. $5k, payable with your company benefit, credits towards continued work.
Phase 2: Aimed at achieving goals decided in phase 1 as quickly as possible. Success fees: payment is forbidden unless you’re genuinely satisfied. Payment proportional to value created. (If you’re unsure about results or believe they would’ve happened anyway, you’re forbidden from paying >$0 for outcomes.) A small refundable bond is also required.
Questions: Twitter DM — chris@chrislakin.com
Long-horizon RL Data
Year 0 ~ “one-shots”: Of 10 AI people selected, 6 paid for outcomes.
Year 1 ~ “8 weeks + homework”: Of 6 AI people selected, 5 paid for outcomes, 1’s paused.
Year 2 ~ “impact alignment”: Evolving…
Over the past two years of research, I’ve learned how to tell when people are in life circumstances where attempting to remove internal bottlenecks is unlikely to be helpful, namely when bottlenecked by material security, active crisis, severe health issues, severe depression, or prioritization. For people in such circumstances, I hope they can find support from friends and family, professionals and social services that specialize in these separate bottlenecks.
(researcher I worked with)
I got exactly the results I intended to.
—MTS @ OpenAI, reference available on request
I’ve likely worked with someone at your lab — DM and I’ll ask them to slack you.
Most helpful for people who haven’t eliminated their bottleneck with years of therapy meditation etc. first imo
They’ve been together almost 1y now
SF or video. Not medical treatment. No substances. Stories shared with permission.