Dan Hendrycks

Last updated
Dan Hendrycks
Born1994or1995(age 29–30)
Education University of Chicago (B.S., 2018)
UC Berkeley (Ph.D., 2022)
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions UC Berkeley
Center for AI Safety

Dan Hendrycks (born 1994or1995 [1] ) is an American machine learning researcher. He serves as the director of the Center for AI Safety.

Contents

Early life and education

Hendrycks was raised in a Christian evangelical household in Marshfield, Missouri. [2] [3] He received a B.S. from the University of Chicago in 2018 and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in Computer Science in 2022. [4]

Career and research

Hendrycks' research focuses on topics that include machine learning safety, machine ethics, and robustness.

He credits his participation in the effective altruism (EA) movement-linked 80,000 Hours program for his career focus towards AI safety, though denied being an advocate for EA. [2]

In February 2022, Hendrycks co-authored recommendations for the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to inform the management of risks from artificial intelligence. [5] [6]

In September 2022, Hendrycks wrote a paper providing a framework for analyzing the impact of AI research on societal risks. [7] [8] He later published a paper in March 2023 examining how natural selection and competitive pressures could shape the goals of artificial agents. [9] [10] [11] This was followed by "An Overview of Catastrophic AI Risks", which discusses four categories of risks: malicious use, AI race dynamics, organizational risks, and rogue AI agents. [12] [13]

Hendrycks is the safety adviser of xAI, an AI startup company founded by Elon Musk in 2023. To avoid any potential conflicts of interest, he receives a symbolic one-dollar salary and holds no company equity. [1] [14] As of November 2024, he is also an advisor at Scale AI. [15]

In 2024 Hendrycks published a 568 page book entitled "Introduction to AI Safety, Ethics, and Society" based on courseware he had previously developed. [16]

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

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A superintelligence is a hypothetical agent that possesses intelligence surpassing that of the brightest and most gifted human minds. "Superintelligence" may also refer to a property of problem-solving systems whether or not these high-level intellectual competencies are embodied in agents that act in the world. A superintelligence may or may not be created by an intelligence explosion and associated with a technological singularity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AI takeover</span> Hypothetical outcome of artificial intelligence

An AI takeover is an imagined scenario in which artificial intelligence (AI) emerges as the dominant form of intelligence on Earth and computer programs or robots effectively take control of the planet away from the human species, which relies on human intelligence. Possible scenarios include replacement of the entire human workforce due to automation, takeover by a superintelligent AI (ASI), and the notion of a robot uprising. Stories of AI takeovers have been popular throughout science fiction, but recent advancements have made the threat more real. Some public figures, such as Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, have advocated research into precautionary measures to ensure future superintelligent machines remain under human control.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Future of Life Institute</span> International nonprofit research institute

The Future of Life Institute (FLI) is a nonprofit organization which aims to steer transformative technology towards benefiting life and away from large-scale risks, with a focus on existential risk from advanced artificial intelligence (AI). FLI's work includes grantmaking, educational outreach, and advocacy within the United Nations, United States government, and European Union institutions.

Instrumental convergence is the hypothetical tendency for most sufficiently intelligent, goal-directed beings to pursue similar sub-goals, even if their ultimate goals are quite different. More precisely, agents may pursue instrumental goals—goals which are made in pursuit of some particular end, but are not the end goals themselves—without ceasing, provided that their ultimate (intrinsic) goals may never be fully satisfied.

Existential risk from artificial intelligence refers to the idea that substantial progress in artificial general intelligence (AGI) could lead to human extinction or an irreversible global catastrophe.

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AI safety is an interdisciplinary field focused on preventing accidents, misuse, or other harmful consequences arising from artificial intelligence (AI) systems. It encompasses machine ethics and AI alignment, which aim to ensure AI systems are moral and beneficial, as well as monitoring AI systems for risks and enhancing their reliability. The field is particularly concerned with existential risks posed by advanced AI models.

The Center for AI Safety (CAIS) is a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, that promotes the safe development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI). CAIS's work encompasses research in technical AI safety and AI ethics, advocacy, and support to grow the AI safety research field.

Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter is the title of a letter published by the Future of Life Institute in March 2023. The letter calls "all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4", citing risks such as AI-generated propaganda, extreme automation of jobs, human obsolescence, and a society-wide loss of control. It received more than 30,000 signatures, including academic AI researchers and industry CEOs such as Yoshua Bengio, Stuart Russell, Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak and Yuval Noah Harari.

In artificial intelligence, Measuring Massive Multitask Language Understanding (MMLU) is a benchmark for evaluating the capabilities of large language models.

PauseAI is a global political movement founded in the Netherlands with the stated aim of achieving global coordination to stop the development of artificial intelligence systems more powerful than GPT-4, at least until it is known how to build them safely, and keep them under democratic control. The movement was established in Utrecht in May 2023 by software entrepreneur Joep Meindertsma.

P(doom) is a term in AI safety that refers to the probability of catastrophic outcomes (or "doom") as a result of artificial intelligence. The exact outcomes in question differ from one prediction to another, but generally allude to the existential risk from artificial general intelligence.

The Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act, or SB 1047, is a 2024 California bill intended to "mitigate the risk of catastrophic harms from AI models so advanced that they are not yet known to exist". Specifically, the bill would apply to models which cost more than $100 million to train and were trained using a quantity of computing power greater than 1026 integer or floating-point operations. SB 1047 would apply to all AI companies doing business in California—the location of the company does not matter. The bill creates protections for whistleblowers and requires developers to perform risk assessments of their models prior to release, under the supervision of the Government Operations Agency. It would also establish CalCompute, a University of California public cloud computing cluster for startups, researchers and community groups.

References

  1. 1 2 Henshall, Will (September 7, 2023). "Time 100 AI: Dan Hendrycks". Time .
  2. 1 2 Scharfenberg, David (July 6, 2023). "Dan Hendrycks wants to save us from an AI catastrophe. He's not sure he'll succeed" . The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on July 8, 2023.
  3. ↑ Castaldo, Joe (June 23, 2023). "'I hope I'm wrong': Why some experts see doom in AI". The Globe and Mail.
  4. ↑ "Dan Hendrycks". people.eecs.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-14.
  5. ↑ "Nvidia moves into A.I. services and ChatGPT can now use your credit card". Fortune. Retrieved 2023-04-13.
  6. ↑ "Request for Information to the Update of the National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan: Responses" (PDF). National Artificial Intelligence Initiative. March 2022.
  7. ↑ Hendrycks, Dan; Mazeika, Mantas (2022-06-13). "X-Risk Analysis for AI Research". arXiv: 2206.05862v7 [cs.CY].
  8. ↑ Gendron, Will. "An AI safety expert outlined a range of speculative doomsday scenarios, from weaponization to power-seeking behavior". Business Insider. Retrieved 2023-05-07.
  9. ↑ Hendrycks, Dan (2023-03-28). "Natural Selection Favors AIs over Humans". arXiv: 2303.16200 [cs.CY].
  10. ↑ Colton, Emma (2023-04-03). "AI could go 'Terminator,' gain upper hand over humans in Darwinian rules of evolution, report warns". Fox News. Retrieved 2023-04-14.
  11. ↑ Klein, Ezra (2023-04-07). "Why A.I. Might Not Take Your Job or Supercharge the Economy". The New York Times. Retrieved 2023-04-14.
  12. ↑ Hendrycks, Dan; Mazeika, Mantas; Woodside, Thomas (2023). "An Overview of Catastrophic AI Risks". arXiv: 2306.12001 [cs.CY].
  13. ↑ Scharfenberg, David (July 6, 2023). "Dan Hendrycks wants to save us from an AI catastrophe. He's not sure he'll succeed". The Boston Globe . Retrieved July 10, 2023.
  14. ↑ Lovely, Garrison (January 22, 2024). "Can Humanity Survive AI?". Jacobin .
  15. ↑ Goldman, Sharon (2024-11-14). "Elon Musk's xAI safety whisperer just became an advisor to Scale AI". Fortune . Retrieved 2024-11-14.
  16. ↑ "AI Safety, Ethics, and Society Textbook". www.aisafetybook.com. Retrieved 9 May 2024.
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