An AI safety advocate describes how he entered deep learning research in 2012 through Geoffrey Hinton's Coursera course while motivated by concerns about existential risk.

The author became involved in AI research primarily due to concerns about human extinction risks from AI

In late 2012, while considering grad school applications across multiple disciplines, he enrolled in Geoffrey Hinton's neural networks/deep learning course on Coursera

At the time, he was unaware that Hinton was a leading figure in deep learning or that the field was undergoing revolutionary changes

This personal account is part of a longer piece documenting 12+ years of arguments and experiences in the AI risk discussion community