Alexander K Saeri

AI governance researcher

AI risk research for decision-makers.

I direct the MIT AI Risk Initiative, building the evidence base that decision-makers need to manage the most important risks from AI.

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Alexander K Saeri speaking at EAGxAustralasia 2025 in Melbourne

About

I conduct and communicate research to help govern highly capable general-purpose AI. I direct the MIT AI Risk Initiative at MIT FutureTech, and hold positions at MIT FutureTech and The University of Queensland. I'm based in Melbourne.

My methods background is in social psychology, applied behaviour science, implementation science, evidence synthesis, systems thinking, and survey research.

MIT AI Risk Initiative

I direct the AI Risk Initiative at MIT FutureTech. We provide data and frameworks to help decision-makers across the AI ecosystem identify, prioritise, and manage the most important risks from AI. Our work asks:

Australia's AI safety ecosystem

Alongside AIRI, I help build Australia's AI safety ecosystem. I advise AI safety organisations in Australia and mentor researchers and fellows in the community. I co-founded the Melbourne AI Safety Hub coworking space and convene the AI Safety Unconference (2023, 2025 and 2026). I designed and facilitated the inaugural Australian AI Safety Forum in 2024 and spoke at the 2026 Forum.

Selected publications

Recent

  • Saeri, A. K., Graham, J., Noetel, M., Slattery, P., Zhao, K., Zhang, E., Howard, E., & Thompson, N. (2026). Unmitigated? How are the world's largest companies responding to AI risks? arXiv:2611.04278. doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2611.04278
  • Saeri, A. K., Zhao, K., Slattery, P., Noetel, M., Graham, J., … & Thompson, N. (54 total authors) (2026). The AI Risk Mitigation Repository: A systematic review and multi-taxonomy framework of mitigations across AI systems, organizations, and ecosystems. MIT AI Risk Initiative. airisk.mit.edu/mitigations
  • Simons, C., Saeri, A. K., Slattery, P., & Thompson, N. (2026). Assessing Company Contributions to Societal Resilience: Extending the Societal Capacity Assessment Framework to Agentic AI. arXiv:2608.27238. doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.27238
  • Saeri, A. K., Graham, J., Noetel, M., Slattery, P., … & Thompson, N. (188 total authors) (2026). Prioritization of Risks from Artificial Intelligence: A Delphi Study of 272 International Experts. arXiv:2606.04490. doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2606.04490
  • Slattery, P., Saeri, A. K., Grundy, E. A. C., Graham, J., Noetel, M., Uuk, R., Dao, J., Pour, S., Casper, S., & Thompson, N. (2026). The AI Risk Repository: A meta-review, database, and taxonomy of risks from artificial intelligence. Patterns, 7(5), 101517. doi.org/10.1016/j.patter.2026.101517
  • Coggins, S., Saeri, A. K., Daniell, K. A., Henne, K., Ruster, L. P., Liu, J., & Davis, J. L. (2026). Affordance Analyses of AI Safety Policies: A Proof-of-Concept using OpenAI's Preparedness Framework. Proceedings of the 2026 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT), 3880–3893. doi.org/10.1145/3805689.3812331

Earlier

  • Saeri, A. K., Lloyd George, S., Graham, J., Lacarriere, C. D., Slattery, P., Noetel, M., & Thompson, N. (2025). Mapping AI Risk Mitigations: Evidence Scan and Preliminary AI Risk Mitigation Taxonomy. arXiv:2512.11931. doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2512.11931
  • Gruetzemacher, R., Avin, S., Fox, J., & Saeri, A. K. (2025). Strategic insights from simulation gaming of AI race dynamics. Futures, 167, 103563. doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2025.103563
  • Saeri, A. K., Noetel, M., & Graham, J. (2024). Survey Assessing Risks from Artificial Intelligence: Technical Report. UQ / Ready Research. doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4750953. Followed by the 2025 Technical Report (Noetel, M., Saeri, A. K., Graham, J., & Slattery, P.): aigovernance.org.au/survey/2025
  • Saeri, A. K., & O'Connor, R. M. A. (2023). Applying AI to sustainability policy challenges: A practical playbook. Monash University. doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/y75rq
  • Saeri, A. K. et al. (2022). What Works to Increase Charitable Donations? A Meta-Review with Meta-Meta-Analysis. VOLUNTAS. doi.org/10.1007/s11266-022-00499-y

Full list: Google Scholar.

Contact

Please contact me to discuss potential collaborations, briefings, or engagements.

Email: [email protected]

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