AI Safety Research and Course Desig

BlueDot Impact is hiring an AI Safety Researcher and Course Designer, to conduct macro strategy research that informs our priorities, design new courses, and improve existing courses in the AI Safety Fundamentals portfolio. The salary for this role is 55-80k (depending on skills and prior experience), and the application deadline is Sunday, 12 November.

Our mission is to empower individuals and organisations to work towards solving the world s most pressing issues.

Over 2,000 people have participated in our courses over the past 2 years, including engineers at top AI companies, policymakers in the UK, EU and the US, and students and academics at top-ranked global universities. Many are now working at organisations such as the Centre for the Governance of AI, Google DeepMind, the Alignment Research Centre, and more.

BlueDot Impact was founded in August 2022 and works out of the London Initiative for Safe AI office in Whitechapel, East London. We re a non-profit and have received >$3M in philanthropic funding thus far. Learn more about our history in this podcast episode.

Tasks

Design courses on AI Safety

We strive to create engaging learning experiences on cutting-edge proposals for positively shaping the development of advanced AI. Our courses are regarded as the default way to learn about AI safety, but we recognise many gaps in our course portfolio. Topics we re considering as future courses include compute governance, the history of international governance regimes for emerging risks, how policy-making works in different jurisdictions, and recent alignment agendas.

Within this role, you ll apply principles from the science of learning and internal course design tools to design curricula on high-priority topics within AI safety, in collaboration with relevant experts. These include courses that are publicly promoted and private courses designed for specific government departments or companies. You ll update the course content based on feedback from participants, ensure students achieve the learning objectives, and guide members of the community to take action after the course.

Build relationships with subject matter experts

Our courses are constantly changing in light of new evidence and changes in the world, to reflect what we believe are the most important arguments and ideas for how to solve pressing global issues. As part of this role, you ll collaborate with subject matter experts on our course content and strategic decisions, and solicit their input on which projects and actions we recommend our community to take after they ve completed the course. Building these relationships may also involve travelling to destinations such as Washington DC, Geneva, and San Francisco to attend relevant conferences and events.

Develop our AI safety strategy

Our research focuses on big-picture questions about how to safely build powerful AI systems, and the implications for how talent should be allocated and which organisations should be built. You ll conduct macro strategy research that informs which partnerships we build, which courses we design, and what our objectives are for new initiatives. Example questions include Which skills are most needed in government AI policy-making, and how do we help fill those gaps? and What type of organisations might be required in 5 years time to effectively audit the development of powerful AI systems, and how can we support people to start scoping those projects out today?

Collaborate with other team members

Researching and exploring different course ideas, and designing new curricula, are crucial parts of our workflow, though we also have team members responsible for marketing and promoting our courses, maintaining and improving our websites and course platform, building onboarding and communications systems, and running community events. This role will involve collaborating with other team members to deliver our courses.

Other activities you could engage in

You could accelerate our online presence by writing content, highlighting opportunities, and signposting interesting resources on our social media pages, and then work with our digital marketing partners to promote our courses on those pages.

You could contribute to our burgeoning efforts to run in-person workshops with relevant partner organisations, such as AI policy teams within the UK government, by identifying high-priority topics, designing new workshops, or facilitating the sessions themselves.

You could support local communities to run their own versions of our courses, utilising our course design and operations infrastructure.

Requirements

Essential

• You re motivated to research and develop insights about the big-picture strategy for solving global problems, especially from the perspective of talent and organisational needs, to inform course prioritisation and design.
• You have strong interpersonal skills, to procure and manage external collaborations for course promotion and design, and to effectively support students on our courses.
• You re passionate about leveraging the science of learning to design exceptional educational experiences and develop best-in-class curricula.

Desirable

• You have a strong understanding of machine learning, or have the technical abilities to learn this quickly.
• You have experience working in policy, either within government or relevant AI companies.
• You re well-networked within the AI safety community and can build those relationships further in this role.
• You enjoy writing and communicating with large audiences, to create inspiring and motivating stories about our courses.
• You re an effective operator, and can quickly turn new course or product ideas into MVPs.

Benefits

What we offer

• We re a small and supportive team, and we prioritise personal and professional development. Our Friday afternoons are Learning Fridays , where we all work on self-directed learning projects, such as learning to code in a new programming language or improving our writing skills.
• Benefits include an annual 5,000 wellbeing budget and a 5,000 productivity budget; private health, dental, and vision insurance; a 10% employer pension contribution; and 25 days of paid vacation in addition to public holidays.
• We share an office with other AI Safety organisations such as Apollo Research, Leap Labs, and SERI MATS, and the office has a great working environment and plentiful snacks. We will consider remote or hybrid team members in some cases, though by default this role is in-person in London, UK.
• Compensation is calculated using industry benchmarks and a candidate s relevant experience. It will fall within 55-80k per annum.
• We provide visas for non-UK citizens.

Application process

• Initial application. We suggest spending <20 minutes on this stage. Deadline: 12 November. Application form.
• 2-hour online work test. To be completed asynchronously at a convenient time for you in mid-November.
• 45-minute video interview.
• 7-hour work trial. Online or in-person, depending on the candidates. To be completed in late November to early December.
• Reference checks.
• Possible final interview(s).
• The intended start date is January 2024, though this will depend on the candidate s situation.
• 3-month probation period. You will receive regular feedback and support during the first 3 months. This period allows both parties to determine if this role is a good fit.