[12] While at Berkeley, Christiano collaborated with researcher Katja Grace on AI Impacts, co-developing a preliminary methodology for comparing supercomputers to brains, using traversed edges per second (TEPS).
[13] He also experimented with putting Carl Shulman's donor lottery theory into practice, raising nearly $50,000 in a pool to be donated to a single charity.
[4] In April 2023, Christiano told The Economist that ARC was considering developing an industry standard for AI safety.
[24] One month earlier in March 2024, staff members and scientists at the institute threatened to resign upon being informed of Christiano's pending appointment to the role, stating that his ties to the effective altruism movement may jeopardize the AI Safety Institute's objectivity and integrity.
In 2017, Wired magazine stated that Christiano and his colleagues at OpenAI weren't worried about the destruction of the human race by "evil robots", explaining that "[t]hey’re more concerned that, as AI progresses beyond human comprehension, the technology’s behavior may diverge from our intended goals.