David Williams-King
Bio
David Williams-King is an AI safety researcher and communicator based in Montreal, Canada. He holds a PhD in Computer Science (Systems & Security) from Columbia University (2014-2020), where his research focused on binary security and code randomization. After graduating, he co-founded and served as CTO of Elpha Secure, a cybersecurity insurance startup, leading a team of 15-20 engineers. He transitioned into AI safety work and currently conducts research at Mila (Quebec AI Institute) as part of Yoshua Bengio's Safe AI for Humanity initiative, and serves as a Research Manager for Technical AI Safety at ERA Cambridge (ERA Fellowship). He also works with LawZero, an AI safety organization. His research examines LLM safety, jailbreaks, and guardrails, drawing lessons from cybersecurity history, and he has co-authored papers including "Can Safety Fine-Tuning Be More Principled? Lessons Learned from Cybersecurity" and "Superintelligent Agents Pose Catastrophic Risks: Can Scientist AI Offer a Safer Path?" with Yoshua Bengio and others. He also runs a YouTube channel with over 30,000 subscribers focused on AI safety and how AI will impact society, and received an LTFF grant to support this work.
Links
- Personal Website
- https://elfery.net/
- Twitter / X
- LessWrong
- -
Grants
from Long-Term Future Fund
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Details
- Last Updated
- Mar 22, 2026, 3:35 PM UTC
- Created
- Mar 20, 2026, 2:50 AM UTC