The roles are located in Berkeley, and we are ideally looking to hire people who can start ASAP. The team is currently Lisa Thiergart (team lead) and myself.
We will research and design technical aspects of regulation and policy that could lead to safer AI, focusing on methods that won’t break as we move towards smarter-than-human AI. We want to design policy that allows us to safely and objectively assess the risks from powerful AI, build consensus around the risks we face, and put in place measures to prevent catastrophic outcomes.
The team will likely work on:
Limitations of current proposals such as RSPs
Inputs into regulations, requests for comment by policy bodies (ex. NIST/US AISI, EU, UN)
Researching and designing alternative Safety Standards, or amendments to existing proposals
Communicating with and consulting for policymakers and governance organizations
I would strongly suggest considering hires who would be based in DC (or who would hop between DC and Berkeley). In my experience, being in DC (or being familiar with DC & having a network in DC) is extremely valuable for being able to shape policy discussions, know what kinds of research questions matter, know what kinds of things policymakers are paying attention to, etc.
I would go as far as to say something like “in 6 months, if MIRI’s technical governance team has not achieved very much, one of my top 3 reasons for why MIRI failed would be that they did not engage enough with DC people//US policy people. As a result, they focused too much on questions that Bay Area people are interested in and too little on questions that Congressional offices and executive branch agencies are interested in. And relatedly, they didn’t get enough feedback from DC people. And relatedly, even the good ideas they had didn’t get communicated frequently enough or fast enough to relevant policymakers. And relatedly… etc etc.”
I do understand this trades off against everyone being in the same place, which is a significant factor, but I think the cost is worth it.
[NOW CLOSED]
MIRI Technical Governance Team is hiring, please apply and work with us!
We are looking to hire for the following roles:
Technical Governance Researcher (2-4 hires)
Writer (1 hire)
The roles are located in Berkeley, and we are ideally looking to hire people who can start ASAP. The team is currently Lisa Thiergart (team lead) and myself.
We will research and design technical aspects of regulation and policy that could lead to safer AI, focusing on methods that won’t break as we move towards smarter-than-human AI. We want to design policy that allows us to safely and objectively assess the risks from powerful AI, build consensus around the risks we face, and put in place measures to prevent catastrophic outcomes.
The team will likely work on:
Limitations of current proposals such as RSPs
Inputs into regulations, requests for comment by policy bodies (ex. NIST/US AISI, EU, UN)
Researching and designing alternative Safety Standards, or amendments to existing proposals
Communicating with and consulting for policymakers and governance organizations
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me on LW or at peter@intelligence.org
I would strongly suggest considering hires who would be based in DC (or who would hop between DC and Berkeley). In my experience, being in DC (or being familiar with DC & having a network in DC) is extremely valuable for being able to shape policy discussions, know what kinds of research questions matter, know what kinds of things policymakers are paying attention to, etc.
I would go as far as to say something like “in 6 months, if MIRI’s technical governance team has not achieved very much, one of my top 3 reasons for why MIRI failed would be that they did not engage enough with DC people//US policy people. As a result, they focused too much on questions that Bay Area people are interested in and too little on questions that Congressional offices and executive branch agencies are interested in. And relatedly, they didn’t get enough feedback from DC people. And relatedly, even the good ideas they had didn’t get communicated frequently enough or fast enough to relevant policymakers. And relatedly… etc etc.”
I do understand this trades off against everyone being in the same place, which is a significant factor, but I think the cost is worth it.