I knew starting up a nonprofit wouldn’t be easy, but I didn’t realize just how much there is to do until we were deep into it. The long hours—many days 12-15 hours in front of the screen—and sacrificing not just sleep but precious family time were problematic. This strain spilled over into discussions with my wife about our finances more than we'd like; those conversations broke me each time even though she stood by me through it all.

From the moment I stepped into Harvard Law, I was subconsciously aware of the path I wanted my career to take. It was not just about earning a degree; it was about preparing myself to make a substantial difference in the world, guided by the deep-rooted principles in me of fairness and equality. My journey, marked by a steadfast commitment to social justice and an 18-year-long dedication to vegetarianism and veganism, has always been about aligning my actions with my values.

After graduation in 2022, while many of my peers chose the lucrative route of corporate defense, I ventured into the realm of public interest law. This decision meant turning down an offer that could have easily secured me a six-figure annual salary. Instead, I chose to work at a civil rights and employment law firm, Sanford Heisler Sharp, LLP, as a worker-side lawyer with a much smaller annual salary. I dedicated my efforts to represent private-sector employees in discrimination cases. Previously, I advocated for better conditions and pay for public-sector employees while working at a federal employee union. Choosing to serve the greater good felt right, aligning more closely with my values than any $260,000 job offer could.

My passion for social justice and commitment to serving others has driven my career choices long before StakeOut.AI. During my six-year service in the U.S. Air Force, where I served as an intelligence analyst within U.S. Cyber Command's Cyber National Mission Force, I volunteered for the Sexual Assault Prevention & Response program to defend those who were vulnerable.

But what piqued my interest in AI was a conference at the White House in 2016 about AI and its impact on the workforce. Then, during law school, I explored AI's impact on discrimination in the workforce, sparking my curiosity further. At Sanford Heisler Sharp, I joined the AI committee, sharing articles and research on the subject, with the intention of preparing us for AI-related discrimination cases.

Finally, when the opportunity came up to join the co-founding team at StakeOut.AI in November 2023 after my time at Sanford Heisler Sharp, LLP, I leaped at it. There was a profound intersection of AI and employment, and I was driven by a deep-seated interest in AI and its societal implications now and for future generations.

In that summer of 2022, I joined a diverse group of researchers at the ML Alignment Theory Seminar (MATS) program dedicated to AI safety research—a mix of idealists and seasoned experts united by a common goal: navigating the unknown waters of how to ensure effective AI safeguards. This research environment turned out to be one of sobering realism—acknowledging that while we had pursued lofty ambitions for human-compatible AI, such AI alignment might be a difficult, even a practically intractable challenge given the potentially very short amount of time we have before AI capabilities advance to a particularly dangerous point.

During this period, Max Tegmark (one of TIME's Top 100 Most Influential People in AI) became a pivotal figure in my journey. Recognizing our mutual concerns about ensuring that AI will go well for humans, Max offered to be my postdoctoral mentor. His immense guidance has helped me probe deeper into not just AI’s technological aspects, but also its societal implications.

These unacceptable threats reaffirmed to me the importance of subjecting the AI industry to meaningful democratic oversight, as opposed to toothless self-regulation that has already been shown ineffective at protecting the public.

The discussions I had at MIT, the papers I poured over by lamplight—they all led to one pivotal realization. The intersection of technology and society is complex and fraught with moral challenges that cannot be solved through coding alone. It became clear that as much as we need programmers in the AI industry to build safer AI systems, we also need conversations in town halls, classrooms, and legislative chambers. We have a moral obligation to inform people about how AI technology will affect them personally, and how people can exercise their democratic right to voice their concerns about Big Tech’s unaccountable race to be first-to-market with superintelligent AI.