Announcing Colleen McKenzie as the New Executive Director of the AI Objectives Institute
It is my great privilege to welcome Colleen McKenzie as the new Executive Director of the AI Objectives Institute! Colleen has led as AOI’s Director of Strategy, demonstrating an incredible capacity for both rigorous academic research and product management. She has a natural talent for building strong, effective teams and partnerships, and I am confident she is the right leader for this next phase of AOI. I am also excited to announce I am starting the next step of my journey and am joining the forecasting platform Metaculus as CEO.
Colleen has brought structure, energy, and insight to the complex challenges AOI faces in evaluating and improving AI’s impacts, with an impressive track record that includes:
Crafting AOI’s foundational research agenda
Spearheading a collaboration with key AI researchers on our Research Agenda for Sociotechnical AI Safety paper
Deploying Talk to the City to activist groups and labor unions for more robust, more effective collective decision making
Fundraising and building a team for Transformative Simulations Research, which delivers research on agent-based modeling, wargaming, and other efforts to model possible futures
I will continue to serve as a member of the board, continuing to collaborate with Colleen to push AOI forward and always serving as a passionate evangelist supporting our shared mission.
I’m so proud of the incredible progress we’ve made, and I’m forever grateful for the support of our teammates, collaborators, and funders. Reflecting on this transition, Brittney Gallagher, AOI’s Co-Founder had this to say:
When the institute tragically lost its founder, Peter Eckersley, in 2022, Deger was instrumental in transitioning the organization to something that Peter would have been incredibly proud of. I am glad he will be advising us as we continue our mission. I can’t contain my excitement for Colleen to come on as Executive Director. Working closely with her was something Peter always wanted, and I have nothing but confidence in her ability to lead AOI into the future.
As the new CEO of Metaculus, I am excited to leverage quantified forecasting to identify inflection points in humanity’s future so we can best direct our collective efforts and steer toward the future we want.
I want to thank Colleen for everything she has contributed to AOI’s mission so far, and for all she will contribute as AOI’s new leader. We have every confidence in her.
With gratitude,
Deger Turan
