person
Leopold Aschenbrenner
Author of 'Situational Awareness'; former OpenAI Superalignment team
Young former OpenAI researcher whose 165-page June 2024 essay Situational Awareness became the most-discussed AI forecast of the year. Argues AGI by 2027 is strikingly plausible and that the implications for national security are vastly underappreciated.
Profile
expertise
Deep technical
Sustained peer-reviewed contribution to ML, alignment, interpretability, or safety techniques. Could review a frontier paper.
Former OpenAI Superalignment team. 'Situational Awareness' (June 2024) was the most-discussed AI forecast of the year. Now runs Situational Awareness LP investment fund.
recognition
Field-leading
Widely known inside the AI and AI-safety community. Appears repeatedly in top venues, podcasts, or governance forums. Not a household name to outsiders.
Situational Awareness essay broke into mainstream tech and policy press. Recognised in AI/safety/policy circles.
vintage
Post-ChatGPT
Entered the AI strategy debate in or after 2023. ChatGPT was already public when their voice became influential. Often shaped by Pause letter, AISIs, AI 2027.
OpenAI Superalignment hire 2023, Situational Awareness June 2024. His public voice is entirely post-ChatGPT.
Hand-classified. See the board for the criteria and the full grid.
Timelines
AGI by 2027p=50%
stated 2024-06
Situational Awareness · For Our Posterity
Strategy positions
Race to aligned SIendorses
Build aligned superintelligence first, before adversariesArgues liberal democracies must reach transformative AI first; advocates a government-led Manhattan-scale AGI project for strategic reasons.
AGI by 2027 is strikingly plausible. GPT-2 to GPT-4 took us from preschooler to smart high-schooler abilities in 4 years.
“By the end of the decade, they will be smarter than you or I; we will have superintelligence, in the true sense of the word.”
Centralised projectendorses
Merge frontier development into one state-led projectArgues the 2027–2030 AGI window requires a government-led AGI effort with Manhattan-Project-scale secrecy and security.
The National Security State will get involved in the AGI project, whether labs want it or not.
Closest strategy neighbours
by jaccard overlapOther people whose strategy tags overlap with Leopold Aschenbrenner's. Overlap is on tag identity, not stance; opposites can show up if they reference the same tags.
Record last updated 2026-04-24.