Topics in AI strategy and futurism

We'll spend the first segment of the project reading through a subset of the reading lists linked below (determined by both mentor and mentee preferences) at a time commitment of 10 hours/week for 4 weeks, with weekly discussion sessions and informal asynchronous chats. Then, we'll determine whether we want the group to proceed to writing a forecast, position piece, or research report of a tightly-scoped topic explored during the first segment. Mentees who are selected for the second segment will receive a stipend for being a part-time research assistant.

Reading lists: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/L5fohLhZ7cBwDR55C/ai-futurism-reading-list https://www.forethought.org/research#featured

To get an idea of what Dylan and Govind are interested in, you should read their blogs: https://www.dylanbowmansf.com/blog.html https://substack.com/@pimpale

AI safety benefits from having more calculating, aligned thinkers in the area of AI strategy and futurism, but oftentimes this context can be hard to distill to new community members because of trust, not wanting things to be written down, etc.

Segment 1: Mentees will read and present on selected readings with a time commitment of 10 hours/week.

Segment 2: Mentees will do research on AI strategy and futurism. The specific type of research here will be mentee-dependent: some examples might be creating an eval for a specific model capability or behavior, writing a position piece on a particular kind of AI policy, or forecasting a specific scenario that might play out in the next decade. The final work product will likely be a whitepaper or post of some sort.

• An understanding of how to leverage AI well for conceptual research and writing.
• The ideal mentee is self-directed, compassionate, disciplined, and serious about a career in AI safety.

Strong candidates might:

• Bring a deep and unusual expertise that allows them to approach AI strategy from a different angle from the rest of the AI safety community.
• Have worked or interned at a tech startup.
• Have a background in mathematical modeling for the social sciences or adjacent fields
• Have serious writing experience across any discipline (academia, journalism, etc.)
• (...) Deep knowledge in AI research or AI alignment is always nice to have

It's also worth sharing that I scoped out this role for a talented undergraduate student with native/fluent English proficiency. I think this stream will be less successful/useful the further someone is from this distribution but happy to consider all applicants.