Julian Hazell

Timeline

1. 2021–2023

   An Oxford MSc

   After a BA in Economics at McGill University, he studies at the Oxford Internet Institute from September 2021 to September 2023 for an MSc in Social Science of the Internet. During his MSc, he is a content and research associate at Giving What We Can.

2. March 2023

   Restricting AI capabilities

   He works as a summer research fellow and then a research assistant on the policy team at the Centre for the Governance of AI. In March 2023, he and Markus Anderljung release "Protecting Society from AI Misuse", which sets out a taxonomy of interventions against AI misuse and a framework for deciding when restrictions on capabilities are warranted.

3. May 2023

   Spear phishing with GPT-4

   In May 2023, he publishes "Spear Phishing With Large Language Models", using OpenAI's GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 to write unique spear phishing messages for over 600 British Members of Parliament. The Centre for the Governance of AI publishes the study, which finds the emails realistic and cost-effective at a fraction of a cent each.

4. 2023

   Program associate at Open Philanthropy

   In October 2023, he is a program associate in AI governance and policy at Open Philanthropy and takes part in an Ask Me Anything about the foundation's hiring round with Ajeya Cotra and other staff. The team names him among its recent hires.

5. 2023

   The OII thesis prize

   His thesis "The Sentinel Model: A Study of Defensive AI Systems and Misuse Risks from Advanced AI", supervised by Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger, wins the Oxford Internet Institute's 2023 MSc thesis prize for Social Science of the Internet.

6. February 2024

   Compute and AI governance

   In February 2024, he coauthors "Computing Power and the Governance of Artificial Intelligence" with Girish Sastry, Lennart Heim, Yoshua Bengio, Diane Coyle and others. The paper argues that policymakers could use compute to give regulators visibility into AI, allocate resources and enforce restrictions against malicious AI development.

7. July 2024

   An AI governance RFP

   In July 2024, he announces Open Philanthropy's AI governance and policy request for proposals, which invites short expressions of interest for funding across six subject areas.

8. As of October 2026

   Head of AI Strategy at Astralis

   By March 2026, he wraps up two and a half years as a grantmaker on the AI governance and policy team at Coefficient Giving, formerly Open Philanthropy, and announces a move to Astralis Foundation. He is Head of AI Strategy at Astralis, where he works on grantmaking strategy, prioritisation and processes. On his blog Secret Third Thing, he writes about preparing for AI systems vastly smarter than humans.