London Diaries! Part 1

This is the second time I’m trying to write this post. It shouldn’t be this hard to write a travelogue, right? RIGHT?! But it is.

Some part of that blame goes to all the rich and many, many experiences that I have had on this trip. Each of them fought for space in this post, and inadvertently, I had to let go of some. In any case, what follows is my travelogue for my trip to London from 16th August to 27th August 2024 - reproduced to the best of my abilities.

The summer

This trip was part of the summer fellowship I was doing in AI safety. Most of the fellowship happened in July but a large chunk of it spilled into August. This meant missing out on a month of university (!)¹ Of course, I had to manage my attendance, assignments, and keep up with the course work whilst working full time for the fellowship and managing logistics for the trip - such as Visa, etc. To be fair, though, a large chunk of the logistics was handled by JJ, our fellowship manager so kudos to him. Unlike the first time, I was joined by three other fellows - Green, Silver, and Scarlet.

Day 0 (16th August)

All of us flew from Bangalore to Mumbai on a domestic flight and then another to Heathrow. Why? Don’t ask me. It was some optimisation that JJ had done to save costs. Anyhow, the funny thing was that we had to make a terminal change from T1 to T2 at Mumbai. And even more funny was the fact that our BLR-BOM flight got delayed by 2 hours which left us with a very short window to check-in, clear immigration and security to catch the Air India flight to Heathrow. We left our residence in BLR at around 3:30 AM (!) and flew from BLR at around 8:30 AM. Thankfully, the transit was a breeze and I found myself at the threshold of immigration in no time. Our org compensated by giving us free reign on the company card (this is an important inventory item for broke college students like me :’)) so I got myself a sandwich and hot chocolate from Starbucks.

The flight itself was very unhappening in that sense. I had planned to binge on movies or something, but instead, I was just too tired, so I slept. The food was meh but it was Air India - what else was I expecting? Moreover, I had an aisle seat allocated but they changed it to a middle seat so F U Air India. But none of it mattered because I was buzzing with excitement for what laid ahead at the end of that flight. Green was super focused and was studying for some exam and also preparing for a career fair organised at LISA where a bunch of AI safety orgs would be participating. For reference, see below:

We landed at Heathrow around 7 PM BST. Clearing immigration was a joyful experience this time because I wasn’t alone and didn’t have to talk to myself to keep me company. I’m pretty sure some highly contemptible/controversial subjects were discussed while standing in the queue which could have potentially gotten me and Green kicked out of the UK :P

The familiar smell of the UK hit me as I descended the escalator - the freshly baked donuts, the royalty (the floor cleaner?), and the scent of Englishmen - all combined in an alien and foreign smell. I exclaimed to myself, “Yeah, we’re back again,” as my olfactory memories were tingled.

I quickly realised that my phone is stupid and it cannot handle 5G bandwidths which meant that the UK sim was useless for me. I got the Airtel international plan last time and it was shit so I was extremely wary to use that but given I had no option left, I had to buy that and surprisingly, it worked like a charm! After spending a good 2-3 hours running around the airport with our luggage, we finally found our way to the cab station and found yourselves being escorted by a South Asian driver. Unaware of how things work in the UK, we thought this was a perfectly safe thing to do - as it turned out, it wasn’t! We were promptly cornered by police-officers who told us what really happened - the driver was illegally trying to get a ride. We had a nice chat with the lady police-officer who was very kind and helped us find the actual cab station while JJ had to fill a witness form for the police-officer’s documentation purposes. Basically, more delay.

We finally took an Uber at 23:14 in a suave electric Mini Cooper, I think, and drove all the way to Edmonton where we were staying. I remember mentally noting the incredible weather and how it was a blessing since the last time I was here - right in the middle of the cold, bitter winter. I remember hitting the bed and not even looking at the clock.

Day 1 (17th Aug)

I woke up early the next day thanks to the lovely sunlight pouring in through the window. It was a modest room with two beds but I had it all to myself. ^_^

We started out for LISA around 8am as Maps showed it was almost an hour of travel from Edmonton. We took the Overground from Silver Street and went south towards Liverpool (the last station on that line). I couldn’t help but notice the stares I got on the tube because I was different! My brain was hyperactive and I was taking notes of small things like the fact that it costs 3.6 GBP to travel from SS to Liverpool. For some reason, I thought this would be a grand addition to my blog so here we are.

We also met Seb at a roadside food place near Shoreditch, who was also managing the program while having our breakfast and it was a bit awkward turning around to talk to him while also munching on my fries :P I would soon discover that this neighbourhood had incredible graffiti and colourful wall arts everywhere.

Jodie at the LISA reception was super helpful and got us all settled in, I wrapped up some work and prepared for chatting with the orgs at the career fair. I also invalidated a perception I had formed the last time I was in the UK - that people here value human life way more than in India and it is embodied through the fact that people were more close-knit and were more keen to know about you than in India. This also meant that it was good manners to greet someone with a gentle “Hello” and a smiling face. As an introvert, it was incredibly hard to go out of my way and reach out to another person but I tried my best to grow this limb. I’ll rant about manners later at full length.

Met a bunch of amazing folks at the fair. Moreover, I was impressed by Green’s incredible focus as she spent more than 6 hours preparing for what I dismissed as “talking to people.” Now, that’s a person with a purpose.

We broke for lunch, and it was raw tuna which was horrible!

We went to Barbican centre which was this social gathering / movie theatre / cafe centre with a view. It was around 7pm and the streets were all empty and the sun was still up in the sky. That’s when it dawned on me - “We were really in the temperates.”

Me and Scarlet ordered food from Popeye’s on Uber eats and I called it a day. We planned a bit in the living room which I called the “mahasabha” (the name stuck) for the next day. We decided to explore the city.

Day 2 (18th Aug)

I woke up early and called my folks (this became a constant for everyday) and went out for a walk around the neighbourhood. I was also recording these long-ass video logs which I won’t be sharing with anyone - these were mostly about my personal thoughts and impressions of objects and experiences.

Anyhow, we started out quite late around noon and had a brunch at a nearby McDonalds. Then, we started out for the British museum. Suffice it to say, it was a moving experience notwithstanding the fact that half of those objects were stolen but oh well. I explored the museum with Green and realised what else does a person really need apart from a fellow museum enthusiast to discuss ideas with. I have been to a lot of museum along and trust me, it’s not a very nice experience.

We walked all the way to Trafalgar Square and the Westminster area. I remembered visiting the Square on the last morning back in December and it was really so much more of an experience with people in it! We went to a congested TESCO and shopped for food items - milk, fruits, bread - that kind of a thing. We walked along the Thames and giggled and gossiped about a myriad of things - I think friends make life much easier. But I think the true highlight of the evening was taking a work call with Big Ben in the background ;-; (I felt like Hrithik Roshan in ZNMD)

Day 3 (19th Aug)

Arriving at Liverpool street station, I realised how beauty it really was - with the Victorian-Gothic architecture nesting a modern tech-savvy station catering to hundreds of travellers - each in their own world. The first day of the week started strong with a lot of work, a lot of briefings and a few workshops/sessions planned by our org. My talk was planned on Tuesday so I was both a bit nervous and a bit too excited. For the first time in two months, my call with my mentor happened at the same 10am BST! The food was alright, it was some cool rice and beans. The squad decided to not explore a lot so we just went for a walk around the neighbourhood.

Day 4 (20th Aug)

Well, surprisingly, I don’t remember much of what happened on Tuesday apart from my talk and the fact that I was super busy. The org had planned our schedule and it was made to maximise our engagement with other folks. We met A who was working with another lab and he gave an impromptu talk on his paper on prompt attribution. It was so cool to see so many low-hanging fruits in the AI safety field. Tuesdays are also “lightning talk” days at LISA which meant that anyone can present for 5 mins at lunch. We also presented our work which was more like a pitch followed by my talk at the Jupiter conference room for 15 mins. I remember buzzing with excitement and remarking to myself that I could do one of these talks every week! Food was much better, I think, it was something Indian - like butter chicken.

Lunch and dinner were reserved for informal social networking - “what are you working on?” that kind of thing. I would push myself to talk to other people and listen to what they had to say. I would soon find myself looking forward to food time as a lot of other orgs were also working from LISA, and it was a nice chance to network with these smart folks.

Day 5 (21st Aug)

By Wednesday, I had pretty much settled into the workflow for LISA. Today was Green’s talk on simulation they had run with LLM agents to understand the flow of information in the political context. I didn’t have many complain about food. I gradually got to know almost everyone at the office (unlike the forced way, which was initially endorsed by JJ). I came to the realisation that very few people were doing foundational work - the kind of work that, if successful, would change the course of AGI. But most others were doing basic stuff only. The normal distribution of expertise and talent once again? Maybe.

Green gave me a spontaneous session on Kannada on the overground. I also bought a body wash for myself at Boots. Green and Scarlet insisted on making strawberry and chocolate (cause why not?), but I didn’t like it very much.

Day 6 (22nd Aug)

I woke up to be greeted by an overcast and gloomy day with lots of drizzling and wetness (but that’s just London always, right?). JJ was down with flu so we took a cab to the office instead of the overground. My mentor finally came to LISA (he was away for some other stuff) and me and Silver got to meet him for the first time. We also planned a number of group co-working sessions and it got extremely tiring by the end of day. Our org was not helping as we had to attend a few more session and other workshops. Our team decided to continue working on the paper after the fellowship ends (Spoiler alert: Our paper is currently under review!).

I was also fortunate to attend a talk by Stanislav Fort, who is a researcher at GDM, and he delivered a tight and fast-paced talk on his latest paper. Here’s the paper if you’re interested. I would also be attending another talk later by Mary Phuong who works on model evals at GDM. Both were extremely enriching experiences.

I went out with my mentor for a 1:1 talk and got treated to mocha at a local English pub/cafe. Both Thursday and Friday were super super busy as we wrapped up our work at the LISA office. We were all busy fostering new collaborations and bouncing new research ideas for the sake of it. It was super fun.

Most of the weekdays we didn’t go out after work although I was totally in for it. It’s not much fun to go out alone. But what was even more confusing was when Green spontaneously started crying and I honestly got extremely confused. What the hell is wrong with how girls are made? She was perfectly fine a moment ago and all of a sudden, it felt like she would drown the world with her tears. I concluded I couldn’t ever understand women and went to bed.

Day 7 (23rd Aug)

Friday was all about wrapping up. I couldn’t help but notice how people were punctual to the minute and that helped everything work like clockwork. We got a lovely and sweet farewell from the LISA staff with a cake and got on a call with the managing director of the program. There was a bunch of other formalities like feedback form and so on. I also happen to meet Fazl Barez whose papers I have studied with much interest. It was a stardom moments of sorts.

We had a final concluding lunch planned with our mentors on Saturday so we decided to give them gifts and went to Boots yet again! For my mentor, we got a “How to Be British” booklet and a thank you card (which I didn’t write anything into because I went to Tate Modern on Saturday morning (more on this later!) and completely forgot about it :/ - kinda embarrassing ;-; but my mentor is cool enough to understand).

This would be my final visit to LISA and Green took some polaroids on the camera she had brought with her. I was impressed by how organised she was in general; with her clothes, her accessories, her thoughts, etc. - a quality I can only wish to embody as a grown adult male.

Conclusion

I’ll stop here because I fear this post is getting too long. This post mainly focuses on my experience at the work office. The second part will focus on the exploration and the fun part of my trip to London.

Footnotes

1: I know, it sounds crazy. However, one thing that university has taught me is to consider what seems crazy and face it head-on.