About
Hi, I’m Bhishma Raj. Welcome to my corner of the interwebs.
I’m a huge fan of Paul Graham’s idea of keeping identities small, so I’m reluctant to tie myself to a particular group. Still, a few influences and interests might help explain where I’m coming from.
What I do
I work on the AI engineering team at Littlebird AI, where I’m interested in building systems that treat the user as the principal, closer to Gwern’s idea of a “guardian angel” and Forethought’s angels-on-the-shoulder, and act in service of the user’s coherent extrapolated volition (CEV).1
Strategic awareness
I’m also interested in tools for strategic awareness: forecasting, scenario planning, and making coordination failures easier to see. Simulacra is my experiment on the scenario-planning side, using an AI-driven tabletop exercise to make crisis decisions and coordination failures experiential.
Where I’ve been
I was born and brought up in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. I studied computer science at Shiv Nadar University, where competitive programming drove my interest in algorithms and data structures. That eventually led me to a master’s in theoretical computer science at Chennai Mathematical Institute.
Academia turned out not to be my cup of tea. I wanted to work on things that affected people more directly, so I joined Google in Hyderabad as a software engineer. In 2024 I moved to Bengaluru to work with the Gemini for Docs team on LLM-based features such as Help me write and Refine.
What I’m interested in
My interests are fairly eclectic: theoretical computer science, philosophy, physics, psychology, philanthropy, and the interaction between cognition and computing. Biology has inspired many ideas in computing, from cellular automata to neural networks, which is one reason I find cognitive science particularly interesting.
Outside work, I read nonfiction, learn guitar, play badminton, and spend time with our beagle. I used to game a lot, but competitive programming eventually took its place. I’m also a huge fan of MOOCs as a way to get introduced to new subjects.
What this blog is about
I’m not entirely sure, which is part of the point. It is a random walk through whatever currently piques my interest.
One recurring thread is human cognition and its pitfalls, in the spirit of Thinking, Fast and Slow. That led me toward the rationality community around LessWrong and Slate Star Codex, and later toward ideas from effective altruism. My background means technical posts will also show up whenever some cool topic catches my fancy.
The other broad theme is human flourishing: mental health, mindfulness, physical health, and the small practical systems that make life go better. Check out my writing archive to know more about this.
From the old blog
At CMI, my friends and I got interested in indoor rock climbing.
The original blog was called The Curse of Knowledge, after the bias of assuming that others share your background knowledge. Remembering it is a useful nudge toward clearer communication and decisions.