# Now <div class="pills-container"> <span class="pill">Last Updated: Jul 28, 2026</span> <span class="pill">Location: Metro Manila, PH</span> <span class="pill">Inspired by <a href="https://nownownow.com/about">Derek Sivers</a></span>. </div> ## What's keeping me busy Most of my time right now is split between AI safety work and a few side things I can't seem to stop doing (having side quests keeps me sane, I think). Anyway, I'm an **independent consultant**, so I'm not employed by any of these folks. I'm simply everyone's collaborator. Here's the rough breakdown: - I spend 80% of my time doing AI safety-related work. - Field-building (2/3 of my work) - Preparing the Philippine industry and workforce for transformative AI through reform work at [AI4PH](https://ai4ph.substack.com/about). - Building [AI safety and governance courses](https://www.aisafetydiliman.com/program/ai-governance) to enable high-talent and high-potential professionals in the Philippines to contribute to the field at [Safe AI Philippines](http://safeai.ph/). - Facilitating the [Technical AI Safety Course](https://bluedot.org/courses/technical-ai-safety) at [Bluedot Impact](https://bluedot.org/) and the [Introduction to Cooperative AI Course](https://www.cooperativeai.com/curriculum) at [Cooperative AI Foundation](https://www.cooperativeai.com/), and mentoring individuals in my cohort to shorten their pathway to impact. - Research (1/3 of my work) - Looking into how AI impacts MSMEs in Southeast Asia and how Philippine sectors can prepare for transformative AI at [The Asia Foundation](https://asiafoundation.org/). - Studying the interaction of LLM values to pursue pluralistic alignment at [Three Laws](https://threelaws.net/). - Trying to [measure gradual disempowerment](https://cordademocracy.org/project-p1.html) at [CORDA Democracy Fellowship](https://cordademocracy.org/). - I spend the other 20% of my time on things that keep me sane. - Building the [Policy Observatory](http://policyobservatory.org/) out of frustration with how inaccessible government documents are. I think policy input should be more democratized, and this is my attempt at doing something about it. - Applying to grad school so I can hyperfocus on depth instead of breadth. - Going to the gym, reading books, watching movies, and having coffee chats with different folks. - I've learned over the past year that intentionally making space for learning, through things I read or people I talk to, has accelerated my upskilling more than grinding alone ever did. ## What's shaping my thinking right now A running list of what I've been reading or rewatching lately that's changing how I see things. 1. AI systems do not need to be very very smart in order to disrupt the world to an irreversible scale: [What Multipolar Failure Looks Like, and Robust Agent-Agnostic Processes (RAAPs) (Critch, 2021)](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/LpM3EAakwYdS6aRKf/what-multipolar-failure-looks-like-and-robust-agent-agnostic) 2. Most of the time, it's better to have a general direction than a specific goal: [Explore More: A Bag of Tricks to Keep Your Life on the Rails (Tekofsky, 2024)](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uwmFSaDMprsFkpWet/explore-more-a-bag-of-tricks-to-keep-your-life-on-the-rails) 3. Related, on the same theme: [Don't just have a job role. Have a movement role. (Balderson, 2026)](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Poc5zPAnCwwPKuXe7/don-t-just-have-a-job-role-have-a-movement-role) 4. Success means being at the top 1% of what you do among others at your level, and you get there by never letting yourself work within silos: [Tips for Empirical Alignment Research (Perez, 2024)](https://www.alignmentforum.org/posts/dZFpEdKyb9Bf4xYn7/tips-for-empirical-alignment-research) 5. Anything I do, especially learning, should not be done passively: [Social Tinkering: Why Collaborative Curiosity Beats Vibe-Coding (Morris, 2025)](https://blog.cosmos-institute.org/p/social-tinkering-why-collaborative) --- [CV](https://bit.ly/ld_cv) · [Substack](https://halfbakedtheories.substack.com/) · [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/llenzl/) · [GitHub](https://github.com/ramennaut) · [Feedback](https://www.admonymous.co/lenz)