AI Alignment @ IllinoisUrbana–Champaign

Vals AI talk with Nikil Ravi

Wednesday, September 9 · 6:30–7:30 PM

Room 2406, Siebel Center for Computer Science

Nikil Ravi (Illinois Math & CS '23) works at Vals AI, an independent third-party evaluator that benchmarks frontier models on real work in finance, law and software, and on frontier risks like cybersecurity and recursive self-improvement. He will cover what it takes to build a good benchmark, the infrastructure behind running evals at scale, how the evals ecosystem is taking shape, and how independent assessment feeds into AI governance. Vals is hiring across research and engineering, so bring questions.

RSI Index progress over time: a chart of RSI Index score against model release date, with frontier models climbing from about 5 percent in late 2025 to about 35 percent in September 2026.
The RSI Index at vals.ai, one of the evaluations the talk covers.
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