konrad seifert

01 work

bridging inferential gaps to defeat bounded rationality

co-founder of the simon institute for longterm governance. we do frontier ai diplomacy—helping china and the west exchange on ai governance, making frontier developments understood across geopolitical fault-lines.

in practice: we supply diplomats, policymakers and international civil servants to with the technical expertise and diplomatic insight on frontier AI that they need to make better decisions and write better texts. the goal is productive communication between those building the most powerful technology in history and those tasked with governing its impacts—across jurisdictions that don't (yet) believe they have shared goals.

we started in biosecurity policy before covid—organizing side events at the biological weapons convention, designing tabletop exercises, modelling attention dynamics. when covid validated our unique value add, we launched the institute. then chatgpt validated our focus on ai. now a team of 10 operating at the intersection of technical governance and intercultural exchange.

the path here

i discovered ea in 2013 online as i had just gone vegan and was looking for clear thinkers. started ea geneva in 2015, then relaunched ea switzerland in 2017. dropped out of university in 2016 after getting funded for community building. ran 100s of workshops, retreats, interviews and coaching sessions with policymakers and students seeking to understand impact, rationality. co-founded the simon institute in 2021 with max stauffer, who became my flatmate in 2015, too, since we were both too excited about each other to stop talking.

some related writing

how the history of cern can inform international ai r&d efforts

my substack

a fun, personal writing exercise on what diplomatic entrepreneurship looks like and how contingent history is on visionaries who go against all odds

existential risk & rapid technological change

simon institute for longterm governance

a report to advance international advocacy for differential technological development in ai and bio

hazards with escalation potential

international science council, cambridge center for the study of existential risk, simon institute for longterm governance

a study we led to nudge national risk research and governance to focus on global catastrophic risks

most policymakers cannot feel more urgency

my substack

a brief musing on the gap between those who think frontier ai is all that matters and those who govern polities

how computers will continue to change the world

si blog

a fun set of quotes i produced to highlight our organization's namesake's prescience

a computational turn in policy process studies: coevolving network dynamics of policy change

complexity journal

attempting more rigorous political science and validating theory around attention patterns.

02 community

building our village in the city

fractalgva is our neighborhood project in geneva's eaux-vives. we are motivating our favorite people to move within walking distance to serendipitously generate scenius. friends move closer, events self-organize, and the city starts to feel like a durable home base.

previously, i dropped out of uni and rebuilt effective altruism switzerland. the strategy here is the same: identify the ambitious outliers, facilitate encounters, and watch what happens.

what we run

fractal university

peer-taught courses on things we care about -- civic engagement, improv theater, claude code, life satisfaction, bike building, poetry writing, lino printing, child-rearing, documentary making, mandarin, meditating, drawing, climbing.

regular events

meetups, dinners, workshops. many are private. reach out if you'd like to stay in the loop.

occasional retreats

talks, hikes, hackathons, raves, and the conversations and connections that only happen when you take people out of their routines for a sustained period of time.

03 music

selecting, connecting, dancing

i occasionally curate music and weave it together -- from techno to hip hop and jazz -- mostly for myself to enjoy, and sometimes at friends' parties. here are my two favorite recorded sessions. it continues playing in the background as you explore the rest of the page. even 4 years later i'm exceptionally happy with the first one. it has been noted as "characteristically konrad rave energy." i only prepared the first 90 secs and then improvised. the second one is a booty shaker with a bit more mass appeal, according to the play count.

04 thoughts

thinking out loud

ideas that i keep coming back to. i mostly write about them on twitter, and sometimes on substack.

05 reads

20 books i keep coming back to

06 recs

corners of the internet i keep returning to

blogs, podcasts, essays, and other things that shaped how i think.

07 memories

personal lore

the rough arc, then some details.

until 2013 grew up in germany with 1-year stint near nashville, tennessee. encountering america and its bible belt probably played a role in many of my subsequent choices.

2013 discovered effective altruism through animal rights groups on facebook.

2014 started studying international relations in geneva. built ea group instead of attending lectures.

2016 met a funder at a bioethics summer academy and subsequently dropped out of uni.

2017–19 rebuilt effective altruism switzerland. ran 100s of workshops, coaching sessions and interviews with students, philanthropists and policymakers. and countless more meetups.

2018-21 organized events to support the biological weapons convention. covid validated our focus on catastrophic risks. translated the momentum into a new vehicle.

2021 co-founded the simon institute for longterm governance with max stauffer.

2025 cofounded fractalgva after finally moving together with my wife after eight years of long-distance.

fun facts

some background on what might have made me me

photo archive

i have no mental imagery and am trying to get better at taking photos and sharing them. this is 10y on instagram (2014–2024), which i abandoned but exported all my data from.