Cognitive Scientist - Alignment
Cognitive Scientist - Alignment
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Job Description
About the AI Security Institute
The AI Security Institute is the largest team in a government dedicated to understanding AI capabilities and risks in the world.
Our mission is to equip governments with an empirical understanding of the safety of advanced AI systems. We conduct research to understand the capabilities and impacts of advanced AI and develop and test risk mitigations. We focus on risks with security implications including the potential of AI to assist with the development of chemical and biological weapons how it can be used to carry out cyber-attacks enable crimes such as fraud and the possibility of loss of control.
The risks from AI are not sci-fi they are urgent. By combining the agility of a tech start-up with the expertise and mission-driven focus of government were building a unique and innovative organisation to prevent AIs harms from impeding its potential.
This role sits outside of the DDaT pay framework given the scope of this role requires in depth technical expertise in frontier AI safety robustness and advanced AI architectures.
The deadline for applying this role is 15 June 2025 end of day anywhere on Earth.
AISIs alignment team examines ways to prevent models from autonomously attempting to cause harm. The teams research is led by Geoffrey Irving AISIs Chief Scientist a research agenda can be found here.
This exciting new team is part of AISIs Solutions Group which will also examine ways to prevent misuse risks (our Safeguards team) and ways to prevent models from causing harm even if they are autonomously attempting to do so (our Control team).
ROLE SUMMARY
As a Cognitive Scientist working on alignment you will:
- Develop and publish a research agenda carefully specifying the areas of cognitive science most relevant to alignment leaning on safety case sketches written by yourself and/or the wider alignment team to ensure that research areas are clearly relevant and important.
- Carefully design experiments and human studies that precisely target the most important open problems in alignment.
- Supervise external research. We will fund the studies you design; you will need to supervise this research in a PI-type role.
Person Specification
We are interested in hiring individuals at a range of seniority and experience within this team including in Senior Cognitive Scientist positions. Calibration on final title seniority and pay will take place as part of the recruitment process. We encourage all candidates who would be interested in joining to apply.
You may be a good fit if you have some of the following skills experience and attitudes:
- Relevant cognitive science research experience in industry or academia (e.g. PhD in a relevant field and/or spotlight papers at relevant conferences).
- Broad knowledge of existing approaches to alignment (T-shaped: some deep knowledge lots of shallow knowledge).
- Strong writing ability.
- Ability to work autonomously and in a self-directed way with high agency thriving in a constantly changing environment and a steadily growing team while figuring out the best and most efficient ways to solve a particular problem.
- Bring your own voice and experience but also an eagerness to support your colleagues together with a willingness to do whatever is necessary for the teams success and find new ways of getting things done within government.
- Have a sense of mission urgency and responsibility for success problem-solving abilities and preparedness to acquire any missing knowledge necessary to get the job done.
- Comprehensive understanding of large language models (e.g. Claude 3.5). This might include both a broad understanding of the literature as well as hands-on experience with things like pre-training or fine tuning LLMs.
- Experience working with world-class multi-disciplinary teams including both scientists and engineers (e.g. in a top-3 AI lab).
Salary & Benefits
We are hiring individuals at all ranges of seniority and experience within this research unit and this advert allows you to apply for any of the roles within this range. Your dedicated talent partner will work with you as you move through our assessment process to explain our internal benchmarking process. The full range of salaries are available below salaries comprise of a base salary technical allowance plusadditional benefitsas detailed on this page.
- Level 3 - Total Package 65000 - 75000inclusiveof a base salary 35720 plus additional technical talent allowance of between 29280 - 39280
- Level 4 - Total Package 85000 - 95000inclusiveof a base salary 42495 plus additional technical talent allowance of between 42505 - 52505
- Level 5 - Total Package 105000 - 115000inclusiveof a base salary 55805 plus additional technical talent allowance of between 49195 - 59195
- Level 6 - Total Package 125000 - 135000inclusiveof a base salary 68770 plus additional technical talent allowance of between 56230 - 66230
- Level 7 - Total Package 145000inclusiveof a base salary 68770 plus additional technical talent allowance of 76230
Additional Information
Internal Fraud Database
The Internal Fraud function of the Fraud Error Debt and Grants Function at the Cabinet Office processes details of civil servants who have been dismissed for committing internal fraud or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned. The Cabinet Office receives the details from participating government organisations of civil servants who have been dismissed or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned for internal fraud. In instances such as this civil servants are then banned for 5 years from further employment in the civil service. The Cabinet Office then processes this data and discloses a limited dataset back to DLUHC as a participating government organisations. DLUHC then carry out the pre employment checks so as to detect instances where known fraudsters are attempting to reapply for roles in the civil service. In this way the policy is ensured and the repetition of internal fraud is prevented. For more information please see -Internal Fraud Register.
Security
Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check and getbaseline personnel security standard (BPSS)clearancebefore they can be appointed. Additionally there is a strong preference for eligibility forcounter-terrorist check (CTC)clearance. Some roles may require higher levels of clearance and we will state this by exception in the job advertisement.See our vetting charter here.Nationality requirements
We may be able to offer roles to applicant from any nationality or background. As such we encourage you to apply even if you do not meet the standard nationality requirements (opens in a new window).
Working for the Civil Service
Diversity and Inclusion
Employment Type
Full Time
