About Me

I'm passionate about advancing machine intelligence through research in conversational AI, alignment, and reinforcement learning, while also exploring quantitative finance. I focus on developing AI systems that are not only capable but reliably aligned with human values, using data-driven mathematical frameworks to tackle fundamental challenges in how AI systems learn, reason, and interact. Whether investigating new RL paradigms, alignment techniques, or quantitative modelling, I approach problems with both technical rigour and an artist's sensibility—believing that elegant solutions require creative insight.

Biography

Work Experiences

Ziyi Zhu is currently a Member of Technical Staff at Slingshot AI, where he was the 10th employee to join the team. He is focused on training a foundation model for human psychology, aiming to create AI systems that better understand and respond to human needs, emotions, and cognitive processes.

Previously, he was a Senior Applied Scientist at Unlikely AI, where he was the second ML hire. There, he contributed to building an accurate, trustworthy and explainable Neuro-symbolic AI platform that combines traditional rule-based systems with modern neural networks to create more interpretable and reliable AI solutions.

Before that, Ziyi was a Quantitative Researcher at Seamless Capital, where he helped to develop predictive modelling for alternative assets using machine learning and statistics. He was also part of the founding team and main developer who built a conversational AI platform Chai with 1M daily active users.

Education

Ziyi Zhu graduated from the University of Cambridge with a M.A. in Information and Computer Engineering.

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