My name is Mikhail Samin (some friends and family might call me Misha).
I run AI Governance and Safety Institute.
Humanity's future can be huge and bright; losing it would mean the universe losing most of its value. Existential risks endanger that future and the lives of everyone currently alive.
I took the Giving What We Can pledge to donate at least 10% of my income for the rest of my life or until the day I retire (why?) and donated >$100k so far.
My research is focused on AI alignment, AI governance, and informing stakeholders of the problems and opportunities related to AI. Numerous AI Safety researchers told me our conversations improved their understanding of the alignment problem. I'm happy to talk to policymakers and researchers about ensuring AI benefits society.
I believe a capacity for global regulation is necessary to mitigate the risks posed by future general AI systems.
Previously
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
I've launched a crowdfunding campaign to print a book by Eliezer Yudkowsky (in Russian), which became the most funded crowdfunding campaign in Russia's history, with a record-breaking number of backers. As a result, I printed 63 010 books, hundreds of thousands of people read the book online, and I gave printed copies to thousands of winners of olympiads in maths, computer science, physics, etc., promoting the ideas of effective altruism among individuals with high potential and directing their attention to the fascinating problem of AI safety.
AudD
AudD is a music recognition technology company. As the founder and CEO, I brought it to be the default industry solution. It holds the #1 position for the Google "Music recognition API" query, clients include Warner Music Group, Sony, and many other music and tech leaders. The primary service is music identification for audio files and live streams. Because of it, I was able to donate more than $100k to high-impact nonprofits. Try the Chrome extension or visit audd.io for more info.
In the past, I've also started a project to translate 80,000 Hours, a career guide that helps to find a fulfilling career that does good, into Russian. The impact and the effectiveness aside, for a year, I was the head of the Russian Pastafarian Church: a movement claiming to be a parody religion, with 215 000 members in Russia at the time, trying to increase separation between religious organisations and the state. I was a political activist and a human rights advocate. I studied relevant Russian and international law and wrote appeals that won cases against the Russian government in courts; I was able to protect people from unlawful police action. I co-founded the Moscow branch of the "Vesna" democratic movement, coordinated election observers in a Moscow district, wrote dissenting opinions for members of electoral commissions, helped Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, helped Telegram with internet censorship circumvention, and participated in and organised protests and campaigns. The large-scale goal was to build a civil society and turn Russia into a democracy through nonviolent resistance. This goal wasn't achieved, but some of the more local campaigns were successful. That felt important and was also mostly fun- except for being detained by the police. And I think it's likely the Russian authorities will throw me in prison if I ever visit Russia.
And I've written some code, including backend services that responded to requests in fractions of milliseconds and chatbots that were handling millions of DMs every day.
Want to get in touch?
Email me (ms[аt]contact[dоt]ms) or contact me on social media. I'd love to help you with a project that seems to help humanity. I'm always keen to answer interesting questions, participate in podcasts, discuss AI Safety and the future, and meet interesting people.