Grandmaster Labs exists to put world-class strategic minds in service of AI safety and long-horizon risk avoidance — with the same intensity elite players bring to high-stakes competition.
To improve the quality of long-horizon decisions at the frontier by working as external evaluators who apply independent, game-theoretic analysis to scenarios in which getting the position wrong is not recoverable.
The relevant skill is not board knowledge. It is trained pattern recognition under adversarial pressure, comfort with deep calculation, and the habit of looking for the move that refutes your own plan.
We assemble elite players and analysts from multiple countries. The point is cognitive diversity at the highest available standard — not a single school of thought, and not a media roster.
Grandmaster Labs and the broader AI safety community treat severe AI failure modes as a live possibility that deserves the best available strategic thinking. We do not dilute that claim to make the work easier to sell.
Names and affiliations will be published as the working group is confirmed. Until then, inquiries are handled directly by the principals.
Tyler Wagner is the founder of Grandmaster Labs.
He began playing chess at 19 and founded the first Diablo Valley College Chess Club in 2017. What drew him to the game was not only the competition itself, but the psychology behind it—long-term planning and anticipating an opponent’s intentions.
Chess reshaped how he thinks. It sharpened how he learns, how he decides under pressure, how he anticipates what others might see, and how much of an outcome can be shaped before it becomes obvious.
He attended UC Davis, where he earned a B.S. in Biology & Psychology, before moving into real estate development. He is Founder & Principal at Invespar Development.
Grandmaster Labs is where those threads come together—and his way of giving back to the game and the chess community that gave so much to him.
He believes the strategic thinking developed through chess has an important role to play in helping humanity navigate increasingly capable AI.
International grandmaster and IM analysts, by invitation.
Safety, governance, and research advisors — forthcoming.
Grandmaster Labs