“Techno-Cautious-Optimist”

Professional Experience

WorldReplica

AI Engineer (January 2025 - Present)

  • Lead the development of an LLM based decision-making tool

Independent AI Research

Independent Research Project “TraDe” (September 2023 - Oct 2024)

  • Built an automated interpretability technique called Transformer Decompiler (TraDe) from the ground up.

  • Funded by a Research Grant from Open Philanthropy / Hasler Foundation

  • In Collaboration with the Pattern Recognition Research Group (University of Bern)

  • Employed as a Researcher (Jan-May 2024) at the University of Bern

  • Paper was presented at ANNPR 2024

Collaboration with Jeremy Scheurer of Appollo Research (November 2023 - July 2024)

  • Generated a dataset of interpretability testbeds.

  • Created an evaluation tool for LLMs that investigates their ability to code in a novel programming language.

  • Paper was presented at the ICML - Mechanistic interpretability workshop 2024

Bühler

Quarterly AI Consulting (February 2024 - Present)

  • Advised on the long-term strategy in and application of AI

Zetcom

AI-Intern (June - September 2022)

  • Set up an evaluation framework for deep learning APIs in NLP and computer vision.

  • Integrated the APIs in the existing code base.

  • Consulted on the future use of various AI-based technology.

Filmmaking

Self-employed at Lyght (2019-2023)

  • Produced videos for big and small companies

  • Advised on advertisement and communication strategy

Project manager at Video Factory (2017 - 2019)

  • Oversaw and implemented the production of Video Advertisements

  • Played a pivotal role in shaping the company's overall strategic direction.

Swiss Military

Mandatory Service (2018)

  • Completed the 18-week Swiss military school as a reconnaissance specialist.

Projects

AI safety fundamentals

Founded the organisation “Bern AI Safety” BAIS to facilitate six-week courses on the fundamentals of AI safety with a focus on the alignment problem.

GPT-2 Interpretability

Took part in an Appart Research Interpretability-Hackathon and won 2nd prize for examining GPT-2 to localize the circuits responsible for its ability to handle brackets. (Project Report)

Evolutionary training and hyperparameter search

Created a custom RNN from the ground up in Python and performed hyperparameter optimisation through evolutionary training (bachelor thesis).

Reddit-like student platform

Won first prize in the University of Bern software development competition with a typescript-based forum platform for students.

Adversarial Interpretability Experiments

Conducted a series of experiments which showed that transformers could learn to be more resistant to SAE-based interpretability methods. Included large hyperparameter sweep and adversarial training setups.

AutoBench

Implemented a framework to quickly and automatically produce and apply model evaluations that probe an LLMs values along an axis of the users choosing and immediately compile and visualize the results. (Blog Post)

Education

BSc in Computer Science at University of Bern September 2020 - August 2023

  • Minor in mathematics, philosophy and information systems.

  • Teaching assistant in “programming for scientists”

ARENA - Alignment Research Engineer Accelerator - September 2024

Skills & Hobbies

Programming Languages: Python, Java, Javascript/Typescript, Dart

Frameworks: TensorFlow / Keras, PyTorch, Flutter, Angular

Languages: English, German (both equally fluent)

Hobbies: Programming, Fitness, Landscape Photography, Paragliding

Interests: Philosophy, Politics, History of Technology, Data Visualisations

Blog

I sometimes write essays about AI. If you want to know what i think and why, you should read (or listen to) some of my writing.