Hi, I’m Smitty (aka loops on the Internet)! I have a lot of varied interests. I really like having fun! Most of what I do is guided by what I find interesting to work on. I really like working with computers. I also really like having interesting conversations with other people; I find discussing things with people is a really fun way for me to expand my knowledge of the world. I get an almost euphoric high from having really good conversations. (I find discussion-based games like BoTC really fun for that reason.)
My life history
I was born in 2004 near Waterloo, Canada. I did a lot of computer touching as a child, and really liked making software. I started working as a software engineer at a database startup the day I turned 18, and soon after moved to Toronto. I mostly worked on Rust-based PostgreSQL extensions (for working with time-series data and vector data), but I also spent some time working on redesigning the billing system and improving the backend.
At the end of 2025 I felt like I could be doing things much more useful for the world than what I was doing at my job. AI capabilities seem to be increasing rapidly, and it was hard for me to justify working on databases when it seemed like working on AI could have a much bigger positive impact on the future. I am very unsure if the current efforts to accelerate AI capabilities are good or not; I think there’s a very large risk that we will create transformative AI that acts in ways I don’t like (e.g. killing everybody). Of course, if it’s possible to make an aligned superintelligence then it would be great to make that. I’m unsure how hard that is.
So, I quit my job in December 2025 to focus on learning and deciding what I should do next with my life. I did ARENA in London in January/February 2026, spent the rest of February and March not really doing too much while hanging out in Montreal, and then went to Inkhaven in April 2026.
Flaws
Here are some problems I have.
- I have too much of a tendency to just follow the default path without considering it enough.
- I often waste my time doing activities that I don’t endorse as a good use of my time in hindsight.
- I worry too much about saving trivial amounts of money.
- I have nr-axSpA, which prevents me from bending over all the way (I can’t get close to touching my toes) and sometimes makes it hard for me to walk.
Interests
What I’m interested in now
- AI safety
- LLM interpretability
- Cybersecurity
- Reverse-engineering
- Improving my writing
- Memexes
- The Rust programming language
- Nix and NixOS
What I want to learn more about
- Linear algebra
- Kantian ethics
- Decision theory
- Writing GLSL shaders
- GPU programming
What I used to be interested in
I’m still kinda interested in these things, but I don’t do them much anymore.
- Running mainline Linux on mobile devices
- I used to run Plasma Mobile as my main mobile operating system (and made several contributions to it), but eventually I switched to Android because it had much more support for things I needed
- Doing 3D animation with Blender
- I like making creative works; Blender is pretty good for that!
- Making educational YouTube videos
- Improving the free data on Wikidata and OpenStreetMap
Favorite things
- Color: cyan (yellow is a close second)
- Food: pasta
- Letter: J
- Polyhedron: octahedron
- English dialect: American English
