Jehyeok Yeon

Oh, hey there! I’m Jehyeok Yeon, an incoming PhD candidate at Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems with Maksym Andriushchenko with a focus on building intelligent systems that are both technically robust and socially responsible. I was previously at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where I was previously advised by Professor Gagandeep Singh at the FOCAL Lab.

My current research interest focuses on scalable oversight and “superalignment”. As AI models become more capable, I believe it’s more important than ever to be able to continue evaluating and analyzing these models, even if the models become smarter than us. This could mean creating more difficult tasks with no ground truth answer, finding scalable ways to control and interpret models, or reverse-engineering their internal representations to guarantee their hidden objectives match our instructions.

Outside of research, I care a lot about writing, both creative and academic, and how it shapes the way we think. I spend a lot of time walking and thinking through ideas, and I try to catch theatre performances whenever I can. There’s something powerful about live storytelling that reminds me why I study intelligence in the first place. When I’m not writing or watching something live, I’m usually reading somethingMoby Dick — Herman Melvillecurrently on my nightstand.

The fastest way to reach me is through tommy8289@gmail.com. Feel free to reach out if you have any interesting ideas to throw around!