Michael Chen
Research papers (technical governance or ML) related to evaluating and mitigating dangerous AI capabilities, with a focus on what's actionable and relevant for AGI companies
Stream overview
Broad topics I am interested in include:
- Frontier safety policies and proposing actionable improvements for companies
- Existing frontier safety regulation, such as EU GPAI Code of Practice or SB 53
- Dangerous capability evaluations and mitigations, especially related to loss of control
- Making frontier safety practices more likely to be adopted in China, e.g., by analyzing relevant EU/California regulation
Mentors
Michael Chen works on AI policy at METR and is an incoming part-time PhD student at Oxford in technical AI governance. Michael previously worked as a software engineer at Stripe. METR's policy team has assisted companies like Google DeepMind, Amazon, and Anthropic with developing their frontier safety policies – voluntary commitments to evaluate and mitigate severe AI risks. Besides corporate advising, Michael has provided feedback on U.S. state bills and the EU AI Act GPAI Code of Practice.
I like to get daily standup messages about progress that has made on the project, and I'm happy to provide some quick async feedback on new outputs. I'll also have weekly meetings. I'm based in Constellation in Berkeley.
Mentorship style
I like to get daily standup messages about progress that has made on the project, and I'm happy to provide some quick async feedback on new outputs. I'll also have weekly meetings. I'm based in Constellation in Berkeley.
I like to get daily standup messages about progress that has made on the project, and I'm happy to provide some quick async feedback on new outputs. I'll also have weekly meetings. I'm based in Constellation in Berkeley.
Representative papers
Research projects I supervised in Summer 2025 (non-MATS):
- Mapping Industry Practices to the EU AI Act’s GPAI Code of Practice Safety and Security Measures
- SB53.info
- Emergency Response Measures for Catastrophic AI Risk
Other relevant papers/research:
Scholars we are looking for
Good writers/researchers who can work independently and autonomously! I'm looking for scholars who can ship a meaningful research output end-to-end and ideally have prior experience in writing relevant papers.
I can help scholars consult external collaborators for feedback, but scholars would likely be the main driver on a project
Project selection
I may assign a project, have you pick from a list of projects, or talk through project ideas with you.
Community at MATS
MATS Research phase provides scholars with a community of peers.
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During the Research phase, scholars work out of a shared office, have shared housing, and are supported by a full-time Community Manager.
Working in a community of independent researchers gives scholars easy access to future collaborators, a deeper understanding of other alignment agendas, and a social network in the alignment community.
Previous MATS cohorts included regular lightning talks, scholar-led study groups on mechanistic interpretability and linear algebra, and hackathons. Other impromptu office events included group-jailbreaking Bing chat and exchanging hundreds of anonymous compliment notes. Scholars organized social activities outside of work, including road trips to Yosemite, visits to San Francisco, and joining ACX meetups.