TLDR: Lateral Workshop is a program in Berkeley from September 11–13 for mid-career and senior professionals who are interested in transitioning into AI safety work to meet people in the field and explore how they can fit in. If you have experience in another field and are interested in translating that experience into impact in AI safety, apply here by August 9th!
If AI safety is to keep growing at a rapid pace, we’ll need a lot of people that the field currently doesn’t supply well. People who know how to run 100+ person organizations. People who have deep connections in DC. People with specialized knowledge in cybersecurity or verification.
Professionals from outside AI safety have those skills, but it’s been difficult for them to make the switch. The professionals we have spoken with rarely lack relevant skills. More often, they struggle to understand how the field works, where they could contribute, and how to become credible candidates. Here are some of the specific barriers experienced professionals face while trying to transition:
Difficulty signaling mission alignment and x-risk concerns
Lack of networks within the field and poor understanding of where to start to build them
Lack of free time
Financial risk (getting a role is competitive, and the field is insular enough that rejections from roles are correlated)
Difficulty evaluating a young and unfamiliar field that lacks many of the conventional markers of professional maturity
Some professionals do navigate these barriers through persistent networking, self-study, and repeated applications. But requiring every candidate to independently reconstruct the field is slow and unnecessarily costly. AI safety has reduced similar friction for students by building clearer early-career pipelines; we think experienced professionals could benefit from a similar investment in talent pipelines and infrastructure.
Even after some contact with the field, it has been hard to hire experienced professionals:
In virtually all cases, the reason organizations must hire experienced talent in the first place is because the role has higher stakes. A good leader can make an organization go well, while a poor leader can devastate culture and sink an organization quickly.
Organizations are currently hesitant to take bets on people. This may be a good policy for individual organizations to follow, but can simultaneously be negative on the ecosystem level.
Hiring rounds index heavily on in-group signals that are correlated, but not necessarily causal to impact. These disadvantage people who come to AI safety from outside the main cultural context.
Professionals are sometimes poorly calibrated on which of their skills are useful—many of their specialized technical skills are less applicable to AI safety, but the tacit people-modeling knowledge they have is applicable.
Here are some example roles requiring experienced talent:
“7–8+ years of senior communications experience … building or owning crisis communications frameworks, with an understanding of reputational risk management” – Head of Communications & PR, Apollo Research
“You’re a strong engineer with solid infra fundamentals. You can dig into unfamiliar systems, debug from logs, and identify and fix performance bottlenecks” – Member of Technical Staff, Evaluation Execution, METR
"Multiple years of relevant research or policy experience and a track record of producing high-quality work" – Research Fellow, GovAI
“Likely around seven or more years for a Head of Operations profile, and closer to 10 years for a COO profile.” – Chief Operating Officer, Encode
"Write a coalition letter and get twenty organizations to sign it, ranging from religious groups to workers' rights advocates" – Policy Advisor, Encode
Pipeline
The typical path for an early career person is:
First contact (reading LessWrong, university group fellowship) → impactful event or series of conversations (EAG, AISST/MAIA, Action Potential) → fellowship (SPAR → MATS) → full-time role
For mid-career professionals, the current pipeline often looks like:
First contact (reading LessWrong, BlueDot course) → stumble upon an event or find advising (Successif, SteadRise, HIP, 80,000 Hours) → career transition grant (BlueDot, Coefficient Giving) → full-time role
There are few clear steps after first learning about AI safety. The process could be made better:
First contact (reading LessWrong, BlueDot course) → impactful event or series of conversations (Lateral Workshop, EAG) → career transition grant (BlueDot, Coefficient Giving) with advising (Successif, SteadRise, HIP, 80,000 Hours) → full-time role.
Max Nadeau: “Going to the Impact Generator workshop. That was, like, extremely random. And, like, resulted in a major acceleration to my career."
Rachel Weinberg: “Helping with Future Forum, which came from meeting Leilani at Impact Generator”
Gabriel Wu: “having the opportunity to visit Constellation”
Aric Floyd: “After Icecone, I was pretty bought in on I should do something about this with my life.”
Ryan Kidd: “Icecone: brought me over from Australia; connected me with the top experts, funders in AI safety; empowered me to scale MATS, LISA.”
Adam Kaufman: “I think that talking to Buck in a hot tub once [at the HAIST/MAIA retreat] was probably counterfactual for getting my current job”
A handful of career advising options for experienced professionals are available: Successif, High Impact Professionals, and SteadRise.
General events, such as EAGs, have been a superb way to meet with people that would otherwise be hard to find. However, it’s rare to find resources explicitly directed towards experienced professionals so that they can understand the norms present and get the most value out of these events.
Our step towards a solution
After people first learn about AI safety, it’s often unclear what to do next. Even when it is clear, there exists little social proof to follow through with it for people outside of core AI safety spaces. This is why are running Lateral Workshop, a workshop for experienced professionals from September 11–13 in Berkeley, CA. Lateral Workshop will contain 1:1s, small group discussions, and talks from AI safety experts. We will also continue to provide support after the workshop for attendees as they continue on their AI safety journey. Travel, meals, and accommodation for attendees will be covered.
Lateral Workshop will seek to provide the following benefits:
Field Legibility: Bringing in speakers and guests who can speak about their role, their day-to-day work, and their organization as a whole. This can quickly de-risk the ecosystem for participants, and make it feel much more real. Bringing in high quality speakers with well-informed, well-thought out views on AI safety and why it matters.
Networking: Bringing participants into frequent contact with existing AI safety employees, both during the workshop and at a mixer one evening of the weekend. Encouraging participants to partake in future EAGs and EAGxes. Introducing participants to hiring managers and recruiters at AI safety organizations.
Financial Security: Making candidates aware of career transition grants and typical AI safety salaries, so they can better understand their options from a financial perspective.
Understanding Potential Contributions: Showing attendees that they could meaningfully contribute to impactful work in AI safety by exposing attendees to relevant roles and workshopping personal pathways to impact.
Excitement: Drumming up general excitement in potential talent, as in person multi-day events have a proven track record of doing.
Accountability: Post-workshop virtual programming and check-ins keeps promising attendees accountable for completing the journey they set out on, increasing the likelihood that they will continue learning, working on personal projects, networking, and eventually land an impactful role in AI safety.
Who should apply
Applicants should have:
Working knowledge of AI safety and the ability to articulate why AI poses existential risk. This could mean having completed a BlueDot course, being an avid LessWrong reader, following AI safety blogs, listening to the 80,000 Hours podcast, etc.
Clear signals of high competency in their current career
A desire to improve the world, and the conscientiousness to know that it might not be in the form they initially think it is
Examples of object-level skills:
Building functions and teams from scratch
Governmental experience, emergency management, national security
Cybersecurity, hardware
Communications: media relations, technology communications, campaigns
Law, finance, and operations
Headhunting and executive search
Convening: running large events, navigating politics of bringing multiple stakeholders together
Coalition building and advocacy
Leadership, executive support
If you are interested in attending Lateral Workshop, apply here by the end of the day on August 9. If you know someone who would be a great fit for Lateral Workshop, please refer them here. If you can’t make September 11-13 but want to be notified about future iterations of Lateral Workshop, fill out our expression of interest form.
If you have other comments, questions, or concerns, leave them below or reach out at contact@lateralworkshop.org.
This project is being completed through the Generator Residency, a program to help upskill AI safety generalists and fill talent needs in the ecosystem.
TLDR: Lateral Workshop is a program in Berkeley from September 11–13 for mid-career and senior professionals who are interested in transitioning into AI safety work to meet people in the field and explore how they can fit in. If you have experience in another field and are interested in translating that experience into impact in AI safety, apply here by August 9th!
If AI safety is to keep growing at a rapid pace, we’ll need a lot of people that the field currently doesn’t supply well. People who know how to run 100+ person organizations. People who have deep connections in DC. People with specialized knowledge in cybersecurity or verification.
Professionals from outside AI safety have those skills, but it’s been difficult for them to make the switch. The professionals we have spoken with rarely lack relevant skills. More often, they struggle to understand how the field works, where they could contribute, and how to become credible candidates. Here are some of the specific barriers experienced professionals face while trying to transition:
Some professionals do navigate these barriers through persistent networking, self-study, and repeated applications. But requiring every candidate to independently reconstruct the field is slow and unnecessarily costly. AI safety has reduced similar friction for students by building clearer early-career pipelines; we think experienced professionals could benefit from a similar investment in talent pipelines and infrastructure.
Even after some contact with the field, it has been hard to hire experienced professionals:
Here are some example roles requiring experienced talent:
Pipeline
The typical path for an early career person is:
First contact (reading LessWrong, university group fellowship) → impactful event or series of conversations (EAG, AISST/MAIA, Action Potential) → fellowship (SPAR → MATS) → full-time role
For mid-career professionals, the current pipeline often looks like:
First contact (reading LessWrong, BlueDot course) → stumble upon an event or find advising (Successif, SteadRise, HIP, 80,000 Hours) → career transition grant (BlueDot, Coefficient Giving) → full-time role
There are few clear steps after first learning about AI safety. The process could be made better:
First contact (reading LessWrong, BlueDot course) → impactful event or series of conversations (Lateral Workshop, EAG) → career transition grant (BlueDot, Coefficient Giving) with advising (Successif, SteadRise, HIP, 80,000 Hours) → full-time role.
Past solutions
Workshops are able to significantly affect the career paths of early-career participants. Jacob estimates he got involved in AI safety 3 months earlier than he otherwise would have had he not attended an AISST/MAIA retreat. In Asya Bergal’s post https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/rAqKSSXankvys2Fzu/the-case-for-ai-safety-capacity-building-work, she lists some testimonials:
A handful of career advising options for experienced professionals are available: Successif, High Impact Professionals, and SteadRise.
General events, such as EAGs, have been a superb way to meet with people that would otherwise be hard to find. However, it’s rare to find resources explicitly directed towards experienced professionals so that they can understand the norms present and get the most value out of these events.
Our step towards a solution
After people first learn about AI safety, it’s often unclear what to do next. Even when it is clear, there exists little social proof to follow through with it for people outside of core AI safety spaces. This is why are running Lateral Workshop, a workshop for experienced professionals from September 11–13 in Berkeley, CA. Lateral Workshop will contain 1:1s, small group discussions, and talks from AI safety experts. We will also continue to provide support after the workshop for attendees as they continue on their AI safety journey. Travel, meals, and accommodation for attendees will be covered.
Lateral Workshop will seek to provide the following benefits:
Who should apply
Applicants should have:
Examples of object-level skills:
If you are interested in attending Lateral Workshop, apply here by the end of the day on August 9. If you know someone who would be a great fit for Lateral Workshop, please refer them here. If you can’t make September 11-13 but want to be notified about future iterations of Lateral Workshop, fill out our expression of interest form.
If you have other comments, questions, or concerns, leave them below or reach out at contact@lateralworkshop.org.
This project is being completed through the Generator Residency, a program to help upskill AI safety generalists and fill talent needs in the ecosystem.