Illiad Conference at Lighthaven

I was both excited and curious to be inside the world of Lighthaven, a new beautiful retreat space operated by a rationalist community that started operating right next to where I live.

Last week, I volunteered for Iliad, a week-long conference/retreat focused on AI alignment/safety. It brought together some of the most brilliant minds I’ve ever encountered for a week-long immersion to exchange ideas, find inspiration, and to allow this sub-sub-culture to be with their people. I repeatedly heard people say, “I read your paper and …”

As a volunteer, I helped set up the space, pitched in at the check-in desk, and managed some AV in gathering spaces. The organizers discovered it was really useful to have me around. I’m reliable, welcoming, and a grown-up. I’m also local and have a car, which was clutch when renting a drum set.

Since I am Headphone James, I enjoyed connecting with a whole lot of people. By day four, I was regularly introducing new connections with someone I had met earlier in the week. It was very satisfying to do this repeatedly. It felt very purposeful. I want to lean into this more in this next phase of my life.

I started this conference as an anthropologist. What is Lighthaven? What is this conference even about? By the end, I felt like I belonged there. People valued my openness, my desire to be of service, my interest in fun, and my appreciation of the present moment. It was pretty extraordinary that this event was happening at all, and I was honored and humbled to participate.

It’ll be challenging to measure the impact of such a “conference” because there aren’t a lot of measurable metrics. I’m sure there will be a couple of papers attributed to people meeting and exchanging ideas at Lighthaven. However, I choose to believe some important shit went down, and I played a small part in it. It felt like a privilege.