About
About me
I'm Anson, an independent AI researcher and contractor. I have an Sc.B in Philosophy and Mathematics from Brown University. My research interests include formal verification, AI cooperation, agent foundations, and applications of moral philosophy to AI alignment. More broadly, I am compelled by formal systems, abstract beauty, and the Good. My projects on these and other topics have taken the form of Writing, Formalization, and Music. Some less serious pastimes of mine include finding new vegan food to try and hanging out with my loved ones. Formerly, I was a high school teacher of Geometry and AP Calculus. You can learn more about my interests and sensibilities on my Taste page and more of my activities on the Other page.
About this site
This site is a generative art gallery of algorithmic animations. I think these simulations are at their most beautiful when they demonstrate how intricate emergent complexity can arise from simple rules. A few of the animations are generated with cellular automata: the cyclic automaton, the Abelian sandpile, and the turmite. Other animations implement Particle Lenia, a simple Markov text model, and diffusion-limited aggregation. This page's background uses a random Wang tiling generator. For every animation page on this site, press Shift-A to toggle an animation-only view and Shift-R to reset the animation. Each page also has an About button in the bottom right explaining how the animation is generated. The site's code was written in Astro by Claude Opus 4.7 and GPT-5.5 Codex under my direction. All the text on the site is written by me.