The Journey: From Scaling Systems to Safeguarding Intelligence
I am Rohit Kaushik, a Software Engineer exploring the intersection of distributed systems, AI alignment and interpretability.
Professional Odyssey
My career has been a pursuit of understanding complex systems, both digital and metaphysical.
- The Zurich Era: I completed my Master’s in Zurich, where I honed my foundational understanding of rigorous engineering and research amidst the precision of Swiss innovation.
- The AWS Years: Post graduating from my Masters, since the last 4 years, I have been serving as an SDE at Amazon Web Services (AWS). Working at the “Cloud Scale” taught me how to build for millions of concurrent users, managing the entropy of distributed systems where a single millisecond of latency or a minor edge case matters.
- The Pivot to AI Safety: I was recently accepted into the BlueDot Impact AI Safety program. Having spent years building systems that work, I am now dedicated to ensuring that the most powerful systems we ever create—AGI—are safe and aligned with human values.
Beyond the Code
When I’m not auditing neural networks or debugging cloud infrastructure, you’ll find me:
- Reading Books Over the last 3 years, I have read lots and lots of books, some philosophical in nature mainly ancient Indian and Hindu wisdom.
- Sports I have always been fond of playing some sports, in school it was Badminton and Cricket and now I follow a weekly routine of gym, running and some tennis/padel.
- Music I sometimes practice guitar and some singing, it helps me unwind.
“Building at scale is a challenge of engineering; building for safety is a challenge of wisdom.”
“Vidyāṁ cāvidyāṁ ca yas tad vedobhayaṁ saha” — He who knows both the spiritual and the material, overcomes death through the material and attains immortality through the spiritual.