Operations in AI Safety: A One-Year Perspective and Advice
Jul 24, 2025
Mick Zijdel
Building things and fixing problems
Building systems and running events to get more people working on critical AI Safety challenges.
Previously, I ran theatre venues and productions, helped students and student groups turn their ideas into impact, and solved problems with software.
What I Do
View all projects →I run programs and build operational infrastructure for AI Safety organisations including recruitment and selection pipelines, program logistics, CRMs, and the automations that hold them together. More about this side of me →
Catalyze Impact
First employee at the incubator for new AI Safety organisations. Co-ran the incubation program end to end
ML4Good EU March 2025
Taught AI agents, adversarial attacks, and AI Safety strategy at a 10-day intensive bootcamp
I build internal systems, data pipelines, and developer tooling, including a growing toolkit for making AI agents verifiable enough to do real work. More about this side of me →
Edinburgh Festivals Chat
Chatbot providing information about the Edinburgh Festivals
Spotify Tools
Listening goals and statistics for Spotify. Retired since Spotify stopped verifying apps from small developers
ImpAmp 3
Soundboard from improv comedy shows
Black Lightning
Maintainer of the Rails application that runs Bedlam Theatre
I compose for theatre and podcasts, and I hold a degree in Acoustics and Music Technology, including a dissertation on what stalactites sound like when you hit them with a mallet. More about this side of me →
Composing
Themes and scores for podcasts, theatre, and other narrative art
I run venues at the Edinburgh Fringe, sound-design professional shows, and learned it all running a student theatre. More about this side of me →
Professional Theatre
Freelance sound design, including "Mary: A Gig Theatre Show" across five runs from the Fringe to the Traverse
Edinburgh Festivals Chat
Chatbot providing information about the Edinburgh Festivals
ImpAmp 3
Soundboard from improv comedy shows
Student Theatre
Over thirty productions and festivals as production manager, director, producer, and designer, plus two years leading the Edinburgh University Theatre Company
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Recent Posts
I was first employee at Catalyze Impact and co-ran their incubation program for new AI Safety organisations. This included recruitment, selection, program design, logistics, and participant support.
I made heavy use of my software engineering skills to automate repetitive tasks, and I made some amazing spreadsheets.
ML4Good runs 10-day intensive bootcamps that take people from “interested in AI Safety” to actually working on it. I was a teaching assistant at the March 2025 Europe camp where I taught the sessions on AI Agents, Adversarial Attacks, and AI Safety strategy, and coached participants through the rest of the curriculum.
Because the atmosphere at a bootcamp is just as important as the curriculum, I also ran the social side, including a welcome event, a murder mystery, lightning talks, and a Scottish ceilidh.
A conversational AI assistant for discovering shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Developed using FastAPI and React TypeScript. Supports semantic search over festival data, category filtering, show recommendations, and RAG-powered chat responses with ChromaDB vector storage.
Made because I was frustrated reading through the ~3500 shows in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme and I just wanted to ask the program what I should go see.
Spotify Tools allows you to set listening goals for your favorite artists, albums, and tracks. The application syncs with your Spotify listening history and helps you reach your goals by generating personalized playlists based on your preferences and what you need to listen to. It also gives you detailed statistics of your listening history.
Unfortunately, Spotify no longer verifies small apps from individual developers, so it is not publicly accessible. If you would like to try it, please contact me with your email and I can give you access.
A soundboard for improv comedy shows. Developed using Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Gemini 2.5 Advanced in Nextjs. Supports multiple soundbanks, search, arming tracks, Google Drive sync, and multiple sounds per pad.
Black Lightning is the Ruby on Rails application behind bedlamtheatre.co.uk: the public website, show archive, and internal administration system of the Edinburgh University Theatre Company. This app keeps proposals, shows, seasons, and members organised across yearly committee turnover.
I took over maintenance of a codebase that had outlived several generations of student developers and carried it through major upgrades, from Rails 5 all the way to Rails 8, modernising the stack and Dockerising deployment along the way. It is where I learned most of my web development and product skills, because production code with real users is the best teacher.
Artwork from “Ethics Town” podcast
I compose music for theatre and other performance and narrative art.
Podcasts
Themes for audio fiction podcasts.
Short Scoring Projects
Sketches
Short pieces I made for university assignments but did not develop into a full piece.
Theatre Composing
Theatre Sound Design
Other
I wrote my dissertation on “Ancient Rock Music: the sound stalactites” make when hit by a rubber mallet. The project was inspired by a visit to Luray Caverns, Virginia, home of the “Great Stalacpipe Organ”: an instrument that plays the cave itself.
The work had three parts: a physical simulation of struck stalactites using finite-difference and modal methods (approximating them as cantilever bars of variable diameter, in Matlab), a field trip to record real stalactites, and a virtual instrument built in C++ with JUCE so anyone can play a cave from their Digital Audio Workstation.
Photo from “Mary: A Gig Theatre Show”. Credit: Carla Watson
I work as a freelance sound designer and general organiser in theatre. See also the theatre I did as a student.
Theatre
- Mary: A Gig Theatre Show: Sound Designer
- 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee: Edinburgh Fringe (August 2024)
During university (and a little after), I took part in over thirty productions and festivals as production manager, producer, director, technician, composer, and actor. I also spent two years on the committee of the Edinburgh University Theatre Company, the student company that fully operates the Bedlam Theatre: as Business Manager and later President, I helped reopen the theatre after the covid-19 pandemic and led its return as an Edinburgh Fringe venue in 2023.
Shows marked * took place in the Bedlam Theatre
Festivals
- Paradok Platform - Fringe Director - August 2024 (Just the Tonic during the Edinburgh Fringe)
- Bedlam Festival - Festival Director and Co-Programmer - January 2024 *
- Paradok Platform - Fringe Coordinator - August 2023 (Just the Tonic during the Edinburgh Fringe)
- Bedlam Festival - IT Manager - January 2023 *
- Give it a Go Week - Venue Manager - January 2023 *
- Paradok Platform - Treasurer - August 2022 (Just the Tonic during the Edinburgh Fringe)
- Freshers’ Plays - Creative Director/Coordinator - September 2022 *
- Welcome Week - Creative Director/Coordinator - September 2022 *
- Festival of New Theatre in Scotland - Programmer - March 2022 (Teviot Underground)
- Scottish Online Student Drama Festival - March 2021 (Online)
Shows
- Whatever You Want - Producer - April 2024 (Embassy Gallery)
- Glangtivity - Director - December 2023 *
- The Welkin - Sound and Projection Manager - October 2023 *
- Guards, Guards! - Composer - October 2023 *
- Julius Caesar - Production Manager - March 2023 (Teviot Debating Hall)
- Into the Pantoverse - Producer - December 2022 *
- The Rip Current - Co-Sound Designer - August 2022 (Pleasance Above)
- Ondine - Producer - March 2022 (Teviot Underground)
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream - Production Manager - March 2022 (Assembly Roxy - Central)
- Bedlam Haunted House - Composer/Sound Designer - October 2021 *
- Songs from the Bedlam - Creative Director - October 2021 *
- Catching Up - Tech Manager/Sound Designer - August 2021 (theSpace @ Symposium Hall)
- Zoogmalion - Producer - February 2021 (online)
- Trials and Tribulations - Lighting Designer - January 2020 *
- The Odyssey in 60 Minutes - Co-Director/Writer - January 2020 *
- William Shakespeare’s Christmas Carol - Sound Designer - November 2019 *
The Rip Current
Guards! Guards!
Acting
- Princess Ida - April 2025 (Pleasance Theatre)
- Glangtivity - December 2024 *
- Biolanthe - April 2024 (Summerhall)
- HMS Pinafore - April 2023 *
Committees
I was President (2022-2023) and Business Manager (2021-2022) for the Edinburgh University Theatre Company, who fully operate the Bedlam Theatre, and Treasurer (2022-2023), President (2021-2022), and Secretary (2020-2021) for Theatre Paradok. During my time, we reopened the theatre after the covid-19 pandemic and I led the efforts for our return as a venue to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2023.