I study AI safety and alignment starting from the people these systems are meant to serve. I am most interested in quantitative, qualitative, and philosophical methods to explore questions about the societal impacts, governance, and future of AI and humanity.
I have worked with Dr. Liwei Jiang at the University of Washington on HearSayBench, a benchmark asking whether language models recognize the unstated constraints that make standard advice impossible for people in adversarial conditions, and with Prof. Daryl Cameron at Penn State on empathy and AI risk. My publications can be found here.
Contact: ami5520 at psu.edu
What’s new?
I am a fourth year Computer Science student in the Schreyer Honors College at Penn State, graduating in May 2027, and I am applying to PhD programs for Fall 2027.
HearSayBench accepted as an oral at NeurIPS 2026, one of 15 orals among 3,757 submissions to the Evaluations & Datasets Track.
Our position paper, There are futures that benchmark driven AI cannot see, presented as an oral at ICML 2026.
Smolder: Empathy, Collapse, and What Remains for AI Risk accepted at the Positech workshop, CSCW 2026.
Research
(1) HearSayBench: Can LLMs Navigate from Abstract Human Rights to Lived Lives? [project page]
(2) Position: There are futures that benchmark driven AI cannot see [paper, pdf]
(3) Smolder: Empathy, Collapse, and What Remains for AI Risk
* equal contribution
Experience
Research Assistant, University of Washington
Supervisor: Dr. Liwei Jiang
- Built HearSay, a benchmark asking whether LLMs can move from abstract human rights to advice that fits a person’s actual life, framed with Sen’s capability approach and Gricean pragmatics.
- Designed the prompts and a five axis failure taxonomy, and built the human verification platform.
Research Assistant, Penn State University
Supervisor: Prof. Daryl Cameron
- Working on a paper on the relation of empathy and compassion with AI existential risks, accepted to the CSCW Positech workshop 2026.
Summer Exchange Student, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Supervisor: Prof. Fred Lochovsky
Awards
Oral presentation, NeurIPS 2026
Oral presentation, ICML 2026
MCREU Fellowship, Penn State
NTU Global Connect Fellowship, Singapore
Human beings are limbs of one another, made in creation from a single essence. When time brings pain to one limb, the others cannot rest. You who feel nothing for the suffering of others do not deserve to be called human.
Saadi, Golestan, 1258