I am focused on reducing existential and suffering risks from transformative AI, and am currently working as an AI Risk Specialist at the Australian AISI. Prior to that, I mainly worked as a CEO and software & robotics engineer, but have also had various gigs as a fast food cook, actor, STEM tutor, children's entertainer, video editor, and drag queen.
I was born in 1996 and grew up in western Sydney, Australia. My Dad was a plasterer, and my Mum an accountant. I am agnostic, vegan, disappointingly AMAB, tall and lanky, and may be slightly autistic. Politically I lean classically liberal, but do not perfectly align with any specific label. I am particularly concerned with animal and AI model welfare, alongside human welfare. My favourite media includes Feynman's autobiographies, HPMOR, Legally Blonde the Musical, and synthwave music.
In 2016, I was studying Physics & Mathematics at USyd when I realised that superintelligence would become the most important thing to get right in my lifetime, so I switched my major to Computer Science, and began working on generating resources and knowledge that could be useful for aligning superintelligence, on the margin. I've been doing that ever since.
Please feel free to contact me at hunter@hunterjay.com
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I look after the Sydney AI Safety Space (SASS), a volunteer run and donation-supported coworking space. We provide free office space for people working in the field of AI safety (including policy work, technical research, field building, personal study, or engineering projects).
In 2024 and 2025, I was the CEO of Integuide, a company that attempted to integrate AI into existing maintenance and repair systems to guide technicians through complex processes. The main tool that I still maintain from this time is a QA bot for web development, active at qa.integuide.com.
From 2019 to 2024, Ripe Robotics was my primary focus. We were developing machines to pick apples and stone fruit, and had the long term goal of automating orchard agriculture. I was the CEO and acted as both a software and mechanical engineer on the project, alongside my cofounder Leopold Lucas, and engineers Michael Smith, Tobin Smit, and Peter Kydd. The company's IP and assets were ultimately acquired by a firm in Europe.
In 2017 and 2018, I developed a multiplayer online battle area mobile game called FlagWars, which was featured on the Apple App Store. Now defunct, the game let you directly command a small army against another player online. It was originally intended to raise money for AI alignment under a charity structure.
Prior to 2017, I had a hobby making short films, and I also lived at and contributed to a student cooperative in Newtown called Stucco. One of my favourite films from this era was a documentary about the community, which slowly turned into a found footage horror movie. I wrote and directed the movie (under my old name - Luke Jovanovic), and many of my housemates kindly starred in it.