Ajeya Cotra
Technical Staff, METR
About
Ajeya Cotra works on threat modeling and risk assessment for loss-of-control risks from advanced AI at METR. She previously led the technical AI safety program at Open Philanthropy (now Coefficient Giving), where she developed the influential Biological Anchors framework for forecasting when transformative AI might arrive. She holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley.
Key Contributions
- Developed the Biological Anchors framework, one of the most detailed attempts to forecast transformative AI from compute and brain-inspired reference classes
- Led Open Philanthropy's technical AI safety grantmaking, shaping which alignment and governance projects received early funding
- Analyzed compute scaling and training-cost trends before they became central to mainstream AI policy debates
- Now works at METR on threat models and evaluations for loss-of-control risks from advanced AI systems
- Her work is influential in effective-altruist AI safety circles, but its long-horizon assumptions remain contested by shorter-term and skeptical researchers
