Ivan Shishkin
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- Ivan-Shishkin-Dev
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TL;DR
- I’m an honors computer science student at UC Irvine.
- I help direct the AI Safety Collective at UC Irvine and think it’s the most important thing I could be working on.
- I’ve done software engineering and research with the Digital Learning Lab here on campus.
- Outside of work and school, I lift religiously, just got into running, and love tinkering with nerdy CS stuff (Neovim, tmux, AeroSpace, etc.).
- I like to read. Check out more at consumed content.
Like I mentioned above, I care about making sure AI goes well for humanity. The way I’m currently doing that is by helping direct the AI Safety Collective, although I’ve had previous stints doing other work in the AI safety space and am always looking for more opportunities.
Something that generally summarizes me as a person: I try to get lucky on purpose and look directly at what scares me. I also tend to be pathologically ambitious, for better and for worse. I love to get things done quickly, efficiently, and with great care. Something I had on my previous website said: I grew up in conditions that rewarded resilience over comfort, which made me someone who acts on life rather than reacts to it.
I’m also a lifelong learner. I never want the learning I do in life to be confined by my major. I enjoy learning all sorts of things: tech, philosophy, biology (roughly), biomechanics (big words for lifting), nutrition, rationality (new pickup), and many others. I do this by surrounding myself with people much better than me and learning through osmosis. When I’m alone, I still “surround” myself with people better than me by putting them in my ears (or on my screen): long-form YouTube essays and lectures, blogs and Substacks, and Twitter/X for live AI and tech discourse.
Generally, I care about doing life right. The way I do this is by getting a large picture of the world and continuously updating that picture. You can help me do this by filling out an and telling me what you think.