Dan Hendrycks

Dan Hendrycks (born 1995 (age 28) ) is an American machine learning researcher. He serves as the director of the Center for AI Safety.

Early life and education
Hendrycks was raised in a Christian evangelical household in Marshfield, Missouri. He received a B.S. from the University of Chicago in 2018 and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in Computer Science in 2022.

Career and research
Hendrycks' research focuses on topics that include machine learning safety, machine ethics, and robustness.

He credits his participation in the effective altruism (EA) movement-linked 80,000 Hours program for his career focus towards AI safety, though denied being an advocate for EA.

In February 2022, Hendrycks co-authored recommendations for the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to inform the management of risks from artificial intelligence.

In September 2022, Hendrycks wrote a paper providing a framework for analyzing the impact of AI research on societal risks. He later published a paper in March 2023 examining how natural selection and competitive pressures could shape the goals of artificial agents. This was followed by "An Overview of Catastrophic AI Risks", which discusses four categories of risks: malicious use, AI race dynamics, organizational risks, and rogue AI agents.

Hendrycks is the safety adviser of xAI, an AI startup company founded by Elon Musk in 2023. To avoid any potential conflicts of interest, he receives a symbolic one-dollar salary and holds no company equity.

In 2024 Hendrycks published a 568 page book entitled "Introduction to AI Safety, Ethics, and Society" based on courseware he had previously developed.