Help Vivek Fly to Sydney to Share His First AI Safety Paper
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Hi everyone. I'm Sarthak(left), a student in Sydney, and I'm raising money for my research partner, Vivek Chauhan(right).
Vivek and I wrote a research paper together, and it was accepted for a poster at the TAE (Trust-AI-Eval) workshop at NeurIPS 2026, one of the world's most important and prestigious AI conferences. This year it's being held right here in Sydney, and we're presenting in person in December. It's Vivek's and my first research paper, and we did it as an independent project outside any university lab, paying for the computing costs ourselves.
You can verify the acceptance on OpenReview, the official review site the conference uses: here
You can also find Vivek on LinkedIn: here
Why Vivek Needs Help
Vivek needs help with his airfare, because it's a cost he simply can't cover himself.
He's a recent B.Tech graduate, in his current job in India, he is earning about AUD 575 a month (₹33,300). After his living costs of about AUD 260 a month (₹15,000), he can save around AUD 315 a month (₹18,300). The round-trip flight and visa together come to AUD 2,250 (₹1,30,500), more than three months of his entire salary. Even if he saved every spare rupee between now and December, he'd cover less than a third of it.
December is also peak travel season, when flights from New Delhi to Sydney are at their most expensive.
For the rest of the trip:
- Vivek has applied for NeurIPS financial assistance, which covers registration and accommodation but explicitly excludes flights.
- He'll pay for his own food and local transport.
Our goal is AUD 2,250, which covers only flight and visa costs nothing else:
- Round-trip flight, New Delhi to Sydney (Air India, economy, December): AUD 2,000
- Australian Visitor visa (subclass 600, Business Visitor stream): AUD 250
Why This Matters For Us
- NeurIPS is one of the most prestigious AI conferences in the world, and having work accepted there is something many researchers wait years for. Vivek earned his place: independent expert reviewers read our paper and accepted it.
- Most researchers who present at NeurIPS have a university or company that pays for their travel. We did this work on our own, so there's no lab budget to ask. That's the only reason we're asking you.
- The poster is presented in person, and that's where the value is. It's where early-career researchers meet the people who go on to mentor, hire and collaborate with them.
About the research
Our paper shows that some widely used AI safety tests can quietly give the wrong answer. In one case, a test concluded a AI model had become less safe when it had actually become safer, and the usual checks didn't catch it. If we can't trust how AI safety is measured, we can't trust the conclusions built on it.
Our promises
- I'll book the flight and visa directly and post the receipts here as updates.
- We'll share photos from the poster session in December.
Every contribution helps, and so does sharing this page. Thank you for helping a first-time researcher get his work in front of people
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