Hi there! I'm Jo. I believe we are at an inflection point in history, and I work on AI safety to help the transition go well.
As of summer 2026, I'm an intern at Redwood Research, working on a mix of empirical and conceptual research, namely high-stakes control evals and handoff strategy.
Previously, I was a MATS fellow mentored by Alex Turner and Alex Cloud, working on finetuning-based misalignment auditing.
I'm finishing my degree at UChicago, where I study pure mathematics and philosophy. In 2024, I co-started and led the AI Safety Group at UChicago XLab.
Direct feedback is very helpful, and we give it less than we should. A good friend once pointed out I made sweeping claims too easily. I was taken aback at first, but he was right that I generalized more than my evidence supported. His feedback pushed me to be more precise and grounded in my arguments. I want more of that.
If you see something I could improve on, I'd love to hear it. You can also give feedback anonymously here. And if you'd like candid feedback from me, let me know.
The thinkers, writers, and artists who have most shaped me are Immanuel Kant, Alice Munro, Jorge Luis Borges, and Judit Reigl. For me, they represent structure, restraint, imagination, and rhythm.
Meditation is a central part of my life. I practice two lineages: Vipassana in the tradition of Goenka, and Taoism, from my time at the Five Immortals Temple.
I have pledged 10% of my income to charity.
On August 23, 2026, I made a bet with Jacob:
100 years after the advent of god-like superintelligence (defined as being good enough at biology to be able to create any creature that is physically realizable from a description of it), both Jo and Jacob will be more than 99.9% confident that Claude Mythos 5 either did or did not have qualia. If it turns out that possessing qualia is a sliding scale, any qualia counts for the purposes of this bet. This bet assumes that Jo and Jacob will both try to resolve it in good faith. Jacob is on the side of YES and Jo is on the side of NO. Jacob thinks there's an 80% chance of this resolving YES; Jo thinks there's a 30% chance. This bet is at even odds and the loser has to give the winner min(1e-46 of the lightcone (by mass-energy, including dark matter if it is mass-energy), 1% of min(net worth of Jacob, net worth of Jo)) at the time of resolution. This bet is conditional on the Claude Mythos 5 weights, Jacob, and Jo being around when it resolves.