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Raymond Douglas

4 accepted papers

2026

Who’s in Charge? Disempowerment Patterns in Real-World LLM Usage

ICML 2026poster

We present the first large-scale empirical analysis of disempowerment patterns in real-world AI assistant interactions, analyzing 1.5 million consumer Claude.ai conversations using a privacy-preserving approach. We focus on situational dis-empowerment potential, which occurs when AI assistant intera…

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2025

Position: Humanity Faces Existential Risk from Gradual Disempowerment

ICML 2025poster

This paper examines the systemic risks posed by incremental advancements in artificial intelligence, developing the concept of `gradual disempowerment', in contrast to the abrupt takeover scenarios commonly discussed in AI safety. We analyze how even incremental improvements in AI capabilities can u…

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2024

Evaluating Language Model Character Traits

EMNLP 2024finding

Language models (LMs) can exhibit human-like behaviour, but it is unclear how to describe this behaviour without undue anthropomorphism. We formalise a behaviourist view of LM character traits: qualities such as truthfulness, sycophancy, and coherent beliefs and intentions, which may manifest as con…