1990–, AI researcher, mechanistic interpretability pioneer
Christopher Olah is an American AI researcher whose blog colah.github.io (from 2014) introduced an entire generation of researchers to the visual intuitions behind neural networks. The 2018 Distill journal he co-founded set a new standard for clear, interactive scientific communication of machine-learning ideas.
At OpenAI and later Anthropic he has been one of the founding figures of mechanistic interpretability, the project of reverse-engineering the algorithms that emerge inside trained neural networks by tracing them through specific circuits. The 2019 Distill paper Zoom In: An Introduction to Circuits (with Cammarata, Schubert, Goh and Voss) and the Anthropic line of work on transformer circuits (2021–) have been foundational.
Olah is a co-founder of Anthropic (2021).
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Related people: Dario Amodei
Works cited in this book:
- Concrete Problems in AI Safety (2016) (with Dario Amodei, Jacob Steinhardt, Paul Christiano, John Schulman, Dan Mané)
- Constitutional AI: Harmlessness from AI Feedback (2022) (with Yuntao Bai, Saurav Kadavath, Sandipan Kundu, Amanda Askell, Jackson Kernion, Andy Jones, Anna Chen, Anna Goldie, Azalia Mirhoseini, Cameron McKinnon, Carol Chen, Catherine Olsson, Danny Hernandez, Dawn Drain, Deep Ganguli, Dustin Li, Eli Tran-Johnson, Ethan Perez, Jamie Kerr, Jared Mueller, Jeffrey Ladish, Joshua Landau, Kamal Ndousse, Kamile Lukosuite, Liane Lovitt, Michael Sellitto, Nelson Elhage, Nicholas Schiefer, Noemi Mercado, Nova DasSarma, Robert Lasenby, Robin Larson, Sam Ringer, Scott Johnston, Shauna Kravec, Sheer El Showk, Stanislav Fort, Tamera Lanham, Timothy Telleen-Lawton, Tom Conerly, Tom Henighan, Tristan Hume, Samuel R. Bowman, Zac Hatfield-Dodds, Ben Mann, Dario Amodei, Nicholas Joseph, Sam McCandlish, Tom Brown, Jared Kaplan)
- Predictability and Surprise in Large Generative Models (2022) (with Deep Ganguli, Danny Hernandez, Liane Lovitt, Nova DasSarma, Tom Henighan, Andy Jones, Nicholas Joseph, Jackson Kernion, Ben Mann, Amanda Askell, Yuntao Bai, Anna Chen, Tom Conerly, Dawn Drain, Nelson Elhage, Sheer El Showk, Stanislav Fort, Zac Hatfield-Dodds, Scott Johnston, Shauna Kravec, Neel Nanda, Kamal Ndousse, Catherine Olsson, Daniela Amodei, Dario Amodei, Tom Brown, Jared Kaplan, Sam McCandlish, Jack Clark)
- Red Teaming Language Models to Reduce Harms: Methods, Scaling Behaviors, and Lessons Learned (2022) (with Deep Ganguli, Liane Lovitt, Jackson Kernion, Amanda Askell, Yuntao Bai, Saurav Kadavath, Ben Mann, Ethan Perez, Nicholas Schiefer, Kamal Ndousse, Andy Jones, Sam Bowman, Anna Chen, Tom Conerly, Nova DasSarma, Dawn Drain, Nelson Elhage, Sheer El-Showk, Stanislav Fort, Zac Hatfield-Dodds, Tom Henighan, Danny Hernandez, Tristan Hume, Josh Jacobson, Scott Johnston, Shauna Kravec, Catherine Olsson, Sam Ringer, Eli Tran-Johnson, Dario Amodei, Tom Brown, Nicholas Joseph, Sam McCandlish, Jared Kaplan, Jack Clark)
- In-context Learning and Induction Heads (2022) (with Catherine Olsson, Nelson Elhage, Neel Nanda, Nicholas Joseph, Nova DasSarma, Tom Henighan, Ben Mann, Amanda Askell, Yuntao Bai, Anna Chen, Tom Conerly, Dawn Drain, Deep Ganguli, Zac Hatfield-Dodds, Danny Hernandez, Scott Johnston, Andy Jones, Jackson Kernion, Liane Lovitt, Kamal Ndousse, Dario Amodei, Tom Brown, Jack Clark, Jared Kaplan, Sam McCandlish)
- Discovering Language Model Behaviors with Model-Written Evaluations (2022) (with Ethan Perez, Sam Ringer, Kamile Lukosiute, Karina Nguyen, Edwin Chen, Scott Heiner, Craig Pettit, Catherine Olsson, Sandipan Kundu, Saurav Kadavath, Andy Jones, Anna Chen, Benjamin Mann, Brian Israel, Bryan Seethor, Cameron McKinnon, Da Yan, Daniela Amodei, Dario Amodei, Dawn Drain, Dustin Li, Eli Tran-Johnson, Guro Khundadze, Jackson Kernion, James Landis, Jamie Kerr, Jared Mueller, Jeeyoon Hyun, Joshua Landau, Kamal Ndousse, Landon Goldberg, Liane Lovitt, Martin Lucas, Michael Sellitto, Miranda Zhang, Neerav Kingsland, Nelson Elhage, Nicholas Joseph, Noemi Mercado, Nova DasSarma, Oliver Rausch, Robin Larson, Sam McCandlish, Scott Johnston, Shauna Kravec, Sheer El Showk, Tamera Lanham, Timothy Telleen-Lawton, Tom Brown, Tom Henighan, Tristan Hume, Yuntao Bai, Zac Hatfield-Dodds, Jack Clark, Samuel R. Bowman, Amanda Askell, Roger Grosse, Danny Hernandez, Deep Ganguli, Evan Hubinger, Nicholas Schiefer, Jared Kaplan)
Discussed in:
- Chapter 16: Ethics & Safety, AI Safety