Joel Becker

I'm currently trying to figure out what on earth is going on with AI recursive self-improvement.

Previously, I was Founder/CEO of Qally's and did economics/genomics research at NYU, Oxford, and Harvard.

Outside work: I was once the most profitable forecaster on Manifold Markets, co-ran a statistics consultancy advising professional 'soccer' teams, and built a social media presence peaking at 300,000 followers. I enjoy a good sing-along, keeping physically (and financially!) healthy, and cultivating my digital garden.

Email: joelhbkr@gmail.com

Anonymous Feedback: form

Research

A Cotra et al. (2026), METR Blog Post

J Becker (2026), METR Blog Post

P Whitfill, C Wu, J Becker, and N Rush (2026), METR Blog Post

J Becker, N Rush, T Cunningham, D Rein, and K Mahamud (2026), METR Blog Post

P Whitfill, B Snodin, and J Becker (2025), Working Paper

Tweet thread

J Becker et al. (2025), Working Paper

Blog post; coverage in Reuters, Axios, Business Insider, TIME, Fortune, MIT Technology Review (1, 2), New York Times, The Atlantic, Platformer, WIRED, NPR; podcast appearances on Latent Space, Complex Systems, TBPN, Bloomberg Odd Lots, AI Summer; talks at FAR.AI, Foundation for American Innovation, Golden Gate Institute, Constellation, Stripe, OpenAI, Microsoft Research, Anthropic, Harvard CS 2881, Stanford Digital Economy Lab

T Kwa et al. (2025), NeurIPS 2025

Blog post; coverage in Nature, Financial Times, The Economist, New York Times (1, 2), MIT Technology Review, The Atlantic, Sky News, SciencePetr; podcast appearances on Latent Space, Bloomberg Odd Lots, AI Summer; talks at FAR.AI, Constellation, Stripe, MIT FutureTech, Harvard CS 2881, Stanford Digital Economy Lab

D Rein et al. (2025), Working Paper

H Wijk et al. (2024), ICML 2025 (Spotlight)

Blog post; coverage in TIME, The Information; talk at EU AI Office

J Becker et al. (2021), Nature Human Behaviour