Senior Audrey Lorvo is researching AI safety, which seeks to make sure increasingly intelligent AI models are reliable and may profit humanity. The growing field focuses on technical challenges like robustness and AI alignment with human values, in addition to societal concerns like transparency and accountability. Practitioners are also concerned with the potential existential risks related to increasingly powerful AI tools.
“Ensuring AI isn’t misused or acts contrary to our intentions is increasingly vital as we approach artificial general intelligence (AGI),” says Lorvo, a computer science, economics, and data science major. AGI describes the potential of artificial intelligence to match or surpass human cognitive capabilities.
An MIT Schwarzman College of Computing Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC) scholar, Lorvo looks closely at how AI might automate AI research and development processes and practices. A member of the Big Data research group, she’s investigating the social and economic implications related to AI’s potential to speed up research on itself and find out how to effectively communicate these ideas and potential impacts to general audiences including legislators, strategic advisors, and others.
Lorvo emphasizes the necessity to critically assess AI’s rapid advancements and their implications, ensuring organizations have proper frameworks and techniques in place to deal with risks. “We want to each ensure humans reap AI’s advantages and that we don’t lose control of the technology,” she says. “We want to do all we will to develop it safely.”
Her participation in efforts just like the AI Safety Technical Fellowship reflect her investment in understanding the technical features of AI safety. The fellowship provides opportunities to review existing research on aligning AI development with considerations of potential human impact. “The fellowship helped me understand AI safety’s technical questions and challenges so I can potentially propose higher AI governance strategies,” she says. In response to Lorvo, firms on AI’s frontier proceed to push boundaries, which suggests we’ll must implement effective policies that prioritize human safety without impeding research.
Value from human engagement
When arriving at MIT, Lorvo knew she desired to pursue a course of study that might allow her to work on the intersection of science and the humanities. The range of offerings on the Institute made her decisions difficult, nevertheless.
“There are such a lot of ways to assist advance the standard of life for people and communities,” she says, “and MIT offers so many alternative paths for investigation.”
Starting with economics — a discipline she enjoys due to its give attention to quantifying impact — Lorvo investigated math, political science, and concrete planning before selecting Course 6-14.
“Professor Joshua Angrist’s econometrics classes helped me see the worth in specializing in economics, while the info science and computer science elements appealed to me due to the growing reach and potential impact of AI,” she says. “We will use these tools to tackle a few of the world’s most pressing problems and hopefully overcome serious challenges.”
Lorvo has also pursued concentrations in urban studies and planning and international development.
As she’s narrowed her focus, Lorvo finds she shares an outlook on humanity with other members of the MIT community just like the MIT AI Alignment group, from whom she learned quite a bit about AI safety. “Students care about their marginal impact,” she says.
Marginal impact, the extra effect of a particular investment of time, money, or effort, is a solution to measure how much a contribution adds to what’s already being done, quite than specializing in the full impact. This may potentially influence where people decide to devote their resources, an concept that appeals to Lorvo.
“In a world of limited resources, a data-driven approach to solving a few of our biggest challenges can profit from a tailored approach that directs people to where they’re prone to do essentially the most good,” she says. “If you wish to maximize your social impact, reflecting in your profession alternative’s marginal impact could be very priceless.”
Lorvo also values MIT’s give attention to educating the entire student and has taken advantage of opportunities to research disciplines like philosophy through MIT Concourse, a program that facilitates dialogue between science and the humanities. Concourse hopes participants gain guidance, clarity, and purpose for scientific, technical, and human pursuits.
Student experiences on the Institute
Lorvo invests her time outside the classroom in creating memorable experiences and fostering relationships together with her classmates. “I’m fortunate that there’s space to balance my coursework, research, and club commitments with other activities, like weightlifting and off-campus initiatives,” she says. “There are all the time so many clubs and events available across the Institute.”
These opportunities to expand her worldview have challenged her beliefs and exposed her to recent interest areas which have altered her life and profession decisions for the higher. Lorvo, who’s fluent in French, English, Spanish, and Portuguese, also applauds MIT for the international experiences it provides for college kids.
“I’ve interned in Santiago de Chile and Paris with MISTI and helped test a water vapor condensing chamber that we designed in a fall 2023 D-Lab class in collaboration with the Madagascar Polytechnic School and Tatirano NGO [nongovernmental organization],” she says, “and have enjoyed the opportunities to study addressing economic inequality through my International Development and D-Lab classes.”
As president of MIT’s Undergraduate Economics Association, Lorvo connects with other students interested by economics while continuing to expand her understanding of the sector. She enjoys the relationships she’s constructing while also participating within the association’s events all year long. “At the same time as a senior, I’ve found recent campus communities to explore and appreciate,” she says. “I encourage other students to proceed exploring groups and classes that spark their interests throughout their time at MIT.”
After graduation, Lorvo desires to proceed investigating AI safety and researching governance strategies that might help ensure AI’s protected and effective deployment.
“Good governance is important to AI’s successful development and ensuring humanity can profit from its transformative potential,” she says. “We must proceed to watch AI’s growth and capabilities because the technology continues to evolve.”
Understanding technology’s potential impacts on humanity, doing good, continually improving, and creating spaces where big ideas can see the sunshine of day proceed to drive Lorvo. Merging the humanities with the sciences animates much of what she does. “I all the time hoped to contribute to improving people’s lives, and AI represents humanity’s biggest challenge and opportunity yet,” she says. “I imagine the AI safety field can profit from individuals with interdisciplinary experiences like the sort I’ve been fortunate to achieve, and I encourage anyone obsessed with shaping the longer term to explore it.”
