zlacker

Here is Helen Toner's resumé: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helen-toner-4162439a/details/edu...

I am genuinely flabbergasted as to how she ended up on the board. How does this happen?

I can't even find anything about fellow board member Tasha McCauley...

>>next_x+(OP)
Just linking to the education tab of her profile is misleading.

Many people in AI safety are young. She has more professional experience than many leaders in the field.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/helen-toner-4162439a/

>>next_x+(OP)
Getting "page not found". I don't think I have an account....

>>next_x+(OP)
McCauley's linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tasha-m-25475a54/ . From some digging, full name appears to be Aimee Nastassia 'Tasha' McCauley, and is married to Joseph Gordon-Levitt (the actor).

>>next_x+(OP)
People are forgetting that OpenAI started as a legit non-profit. It was not meant to be a big money making startup. So presumably getting a cushy board member position was not as hard because this was just some weird philanthropy thing that some SV people were funding...

>>next_x+(OP)
https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/tasha-mccauley-3562...

>>next_x+(OP)
Helen Toner is famous among the AI safety community for being one of the most important people working to halt and reverse any sort of "AI arms race" between the US & China. The recent successes in this regard at the UK AI Safety Summit and the Biden/Xi talks are due in large part to her advocacy.

She is well-connected with Pentagon leaders, who trust her input. She also is one of the hardest-working people among the West's analysts in her efforts to understand and connect with the Chinese side, as she uprooted her life to literally live in Beijing at one point in order to meet with people in the budding Chinese AI Safety community.

Here's an example of her work: AI safeguards: Views inside and outside China (Book chapter) https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/97810032...

She's also co-authored several of the most famous "survey" papers which give an overview of AI safety methods: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=%22h...

She's at roughly the same level of eminence as Dr. Eric Horvitz (Microsoft's Chief Scientific Officer), who has similar goals as her, and who is an advisor to Biden. Comparing the two, Horvitz is more well-connected but Toner is more prolific, and overall they have roughly equal impact.

(Copy-pasting this comment from another thread where I posted it in response to a similar question.)