Emilio Barkett

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Hello! I'm an Independent AI Safety Research Scientist. I focus on improving social impacts of AI, specifically human-AI interaction, language model behavior, and organizational adoption of technology.

Previously, I was a MA in Media Studies / Sociology student at Columbia University advised by Diane Vaughan and James Chu. Before that, I studied Communication at Brigham Young University-Hawaii, where I got my start in research with Mason Allred and read a lot of dead philosophers. I also spent a summer as a graduate researcher in the Management Division at Columbia Business School with Alan Zhang, where we investigated how emerging player performance technologies are adopted in amateur competitive youth sports.

I lead a research group at Columbia AI Alignment Club (CAIAC), where my group evaluates how language models exhibit human behaviors. Previously we evaluated escalation of commitment in LLMs and evaluated truth-bias in reasoning LLMs (ICML 2025). I also lead a Policy Fellowship with ~25 students where we focus on generating new research ideas in AI Safety.

I love being outdoors, from the scorching Hawaiian summers to the brutal New York winters. A current goal is to run a sub-3:00 marathon (this is how I'm doing). Previously, I volunteered in the Republic of Kiribati for nine months; paced 45 miles of the HURT 100; and backpacked through Switzerland, Austria, and Italy with my wife.

Feel free to reach out to chat about research, policy, or running!

Publications

Preprints

Works in Progress

Contributions as an RA