Oscar Delaney

Projects

Research Direction: Geopolitical Power and ASI

Superintelligence will reshape the world order. One vision for how to do so safely is laid out in https://nationalsecurity.ai/, but it has also received significant pushback. My projects seek to forecast what the likely trajectory of geopolitics under ASI is, and what a more desirable trajectory would be. Example research topics include:

• Examining the robustness of nuclear deterrence to ASI development.

• Investigating escalation and de-escalation pathways in possible US-China conflicts over AI.

• Proposing some draft text/outline of a possible US-China agreement on some part of AI safety.

• Thinking about the pros and cons of having exactly one or more than one frontier AI project, for avoiding misaligned takeover, bad lock-in, and war.

See https://oscardelaney.substack.com/ for the style of work and topics I am interested in.

What I'm looking for in a Mentee

You are comfortable working with messy ideas and difficult conceptual problems. You like writing google docs with best guesses and high reasoning transparency on topics you feel uncertain about. Ideally, you have already thought a bit about ASI and international relations, such as by reading things like Superintelligence Strategy, The Manhattan Trap, Situational Awareness, etc (but this is not necessary, I can give a reading list tailored to whatever topic we choose together).

Bio

I studied maths and philosophy, and now work at IAPS, specialising in the geopolitics of AI and how to navigate the transition to superintelligence safely. I was previously an ERA fellow and then research manager and mentor.