What was going on when I was born?

An engineer for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has changed his view and now says he has less confidence in the safety of the nuclear plant at Shoreham, L.I., according to an affidavit that became public today. James H. Conran, a senior systems engineer for the commission, said in the affidavit to the licensing board that he could no longer ''in good conscience'' support his original testimony before the board last summer. He criticized the commission staff for being too slow in developing a safety program that develops ways to indentify the potential for multiple failures at a plant resulting from interaction between systems. The program, known as systems interaction, would apply not only to Shoreham, but also to other plants.

Stock market prices rose sharply yesterday, mostly on renewed expectations that interest rates will decline. Two of the three major market indicators closed at record levels. The Dow Jones industrial average, composed of 30 prominent companies, soared 20.33 points to 1,087.75, within striking range of its record close of 1,092.35 on Jan.10. The New York Stock Exchange's composite index of 1,500 common stocks gained 1.31, to a record 85.10, while Standard & Poor's 500-stock index also closed at a new high, 147.50, up 2.50.

The United American Bank empire, run by Jake Butcher, a Tennessean who strongly supported former President Jimmy Carter and lent money to Bert Lance, is apparently under severe financial stress, buffeted by losses from questionable loans and an extensive audit by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. In addition, Mr. Butcher, a flamboyant, silver-haired entrepreneur and politician who brought the 1982 World's Fair to Knoxville, Tenn., has been removed from the executive committee of the UAB bank in Knoxville and stripped by the F.D.I.C. of his policy-making power there, according to sources familiar with the inner workings of the bank. The bank acknowledged the management changes and the audit but said the changes had nothing to do with the audit. Mr. Butcher remains chairman of the United American Banks operating in Knokville, Memphis, and Chattanooga, Tenn., and Somerset and Lexington, Ky., as well as of United American Group, an interstate bank management company that arranges multibank loans. Each of the organizations is a separate corporation; UAB in Knoxville is the largest.

Financial leaders from around the world neared agreement today on a 50 percent increase in the resources of the International Monetary Fund, the 146-nation organization that lends to countries hard pressed for cash. An accord on the amount of the increasse, which is being negotiated at a conference of the I.M.F.'s policy-making Interim Committee here, should be completed before the meeting ends tomorrow, conference sources said. The United States, the I.M.F.'s biggest contributor, originally opposed any increase in the contributions -known as quotas - that member countries make to the agency's pool of lendable money. But now, the conference sources said, Washington would accept a rise of 48 to 50 percent.

An article about Joe Walton in some copies of Sports Pages yesterday incorrectly listed the teams that recently interviewed him for head coach. The teams were the Kansas City Chiefs, the Atlanta Falcons and the Los Angeles Rams. The Washington Redskins were not among them.

WITH Metropolitan Opera tickets going for as much as $60 each and Broadway not far behind, the service performed by New York's small opera companies becomes more precious with each passing year. The variety of material offered is wide, and, this being New York, the singers you hear on a small stage tonight may be the headliners at the Met tomorrow. Ticket prices range from about $4 to $15, and you sometimes get much more than you pay for. Tonight and Sunday and into next week the Chamber Opera Theater of New York will be presenting Benjamin Britten's ''The Turn of the Screw'' at the Marymount Manhattan Theater, 221 East 71st Street (the number for ticket information and reservations is 570-1888). A little farther uptown, at the Lillie Blake School Theater, 45 East 81st Street, the Opera Ensemble of New York will present a double bill of Mozart's youthful ''Bastien and Bastienne'' and Henry Purcell's ''Dido and Aeneas'' tonight at 8 and Sunday at 3 P.M. (288-1485). Also on the East Side, the Light Opera of Manhattan, 334 East 74th Street (861-2288), is offering its brand-new production of Gilbert and Sullivan's ''The Gondoliers'' tonight and tomorrow night at 8:30 and tomorrow and Sunday at 4 P.M. And in Brooklyn College's Walt Whitman Hall, the college's Opera Theater will present a program of six new chamber operas tonight and tomorrow night at 8 and Sunday at 3 P.M. (434-1900).

Max Roach, the influential jazz percussionist, composer and teacher, who was a father of be-bop, is credited with introducing, among other things, the drum as a melody instrument in jazz and with showing that jazz can work in meters other than 4/4. He will perform solo in a free concert tonight at 8 at Cooper Union's Great Hall, Third Avenue and Seventh Street. Mr. Roach will also talk about himself and his work. Information: 254-6300. 30'S PARIS ON 71ST ST. Life in Paris in the 1930's - seen through the camera of Lucien Aigner, the French pioneer of photojournalism - will unfold in more than 25 photographs on exhibition today through Feb. 25 at Marymount Manhattan College, 221 East 71st Street. Mr. Aigner, best known for his candid portraits of celebrities and world leaders, captures a glimpse of prewar Paris in scenes of the young and the old, the native Parisian and the visitor, during two Bastille Day celebrations. No charge. Information: 472-3800.

A Koch administration plan for Federally subsidized housing for artists was turned down yesterday by the New York City Board of Estimate. The vote was 8 to 3, with only the Borough President of Staten Island, Anthony R. Gaeta, joining the Mayor, who has two votes on the board. It marked the first time in months that the board has handed the Mayor an outright defeat. At issue was a plan to use $2.4 million in community development funds to help rehabilitate 16 buildings on Manhattan's Lower East Side for co-operative apartments for 117 artists. The buildings are on Forsyth Street and East 8th Street.

The long-awaited announcement of a General Motors-Toyota Motor agreement for joint production of a subcompact car in the United States is expected on Monday, according to industry sources. The venture would mark the first time that Japanese and American companies have agreed to work together to make a car in this country. Their model would be based on Toyota's front-wheel-drive replacement for its Corolla model and would be introduced late in 1984, the sources said. It is to be built in G.M.'s Fremont, Calif., assembly plant, which is now closed.

A coalition of national labor unions yesterday dropped an effort to penalize the Metropolitan Transportation Aurthority for purchasing subway cars from Canada. In return, the authority promised that it would not buy additional foreign-made rail cars during the next three years. The agreement lifted the threat of a $91.2 million fine against the authority that has been under consideration by the Internation Trade Commission. The union coalition withdrew a petition before the commission a day after the Budd Company, the sole United States manufacturer of subway cars, withdrew a similar complaint.

Stock prices rose sharply as expectations of lower interest rates were revived among investors. The Dow Jones industrial average soared 20.33 points, to 1,087.75, and the Big Board's composite index and the Standard & Poor's index rose to new highs. Turnover expanded to 93.5 million shares. (Page D1.) Prices of Treasury securities rose sharply, with traders encouraged by prospects of lower interest rates. (D7.) Assets of money market funds fell $2.4 billion in the week ended Wednesday. (D2.) The dollar fell, while gold prices rose $9 an ounce, to $500, in New York. (D11.) Cocoa futures prices soared, continuing a steady, two-month rise that has analysts talking of a ''mini-bull market.'' (D11.)

Asserting that ''the American economy faces unprecedented risks'' from large budget deficits, the Congressional Budget Office told Congress today that it should act in far-reaching ways this year to curtail the rise of Federal spending and to raise additional tax revenue. The budget office and its founding director, Alice M. Rivlin, offered the advice, in unusually forceful language, in Excerpts from the report, page A18. the 1983 edition of ''Reducing the Deficit: Spending and Revenue Options.'' The 355-page volume is expected to be a basic working document for Congress.