Do you have AI Safety research ideas that you would like others to work on? Is there a project you want to do and you want help finding a team to work with you? AI Safety Camp could be the solution for you!
AI Safety Camp Virtual is a 3-month long online research program from January to April 2024, where participants form teams to work on pre-selected projects. We want you to suggest the projects!
If you have an AI Safety project idea and some research experience, apply to be a Research Lead.
If accepted, we offer some assistance to develop your idea into a plan suitable for AI Safety Camp. When project plans are ready, we open up team member applications. You get to review applications for your team, and select who joins as a team member. From there, it’s your job to guide work on your project.
Your project is totally in your hands. We, Linda and Remmelt, are just there at the start.
Who is qualified?
We require that you have some previous research experience. If you are at least 1 year into a PhD or if you have completed an AI Safety research program (such as a previous AI Safety Camp, Refine or SERI MATS), or done a research internship with an AI Safety org, then you are qualified already. Other research experience can count too.
More senior researchers are of course also welcome, as long as you think our format of leading an online team inquiring into your research questions suits you and your research.
If you are unsure, or have any questions you are welcome to:
AI Safety Camp is about ensuring future AI are safe. This round, we split work into two areas:
We welcome diverse projects! Last round, we accepted 14 projects – including in Theoretical research, Machine learning experiments, Deliberative design, Governance, and Communication.
If you already have an idea for what project you would like to lead, that’s great. Apply with that one!
You don’t need to come up with an original idea though. What matters is you understanding the idea you want to work on, and why. If you base your proposal on someone else’s idea, make sure to cite them.
Primary reviewers:
We will also ask for assistance from previous Research Leads, and up to a handful of other trusted people, to review and suggest improvement for your project proposals.
You can submit as many project proposals as you want. However, we will not let you lead more than two projects, and we don’t recommend leading more than one.
Use this template to describe each of your project proposals. We want one document per proposal.
Every team will have:
To make progress on your project, every team member is expected to work at least 5 hours per week (however the RL can choose to favour people who can put in more time, when selecting their team). This includes time joining weekly team meetings, and communicating regularly (between meetings) with other team members about their work.
The RL suggests one or several research topics. If a group forms around one of their topics, the RL will guide the project, and keep track of relevant milestones. When things inevitably don’t go as planned (this is research after all) the RL is in charge of setting the new course.
The RL is part of the team and will be contributing to project work, same as everyone else on the team.
The TC is the ops person of the team. They are in charge of making sure meetings are scheduled, check in with individuals on task progress, etc.
The job of the TC is important, but not expected to take much time (except for project management-heavy teams). Most of the time, the TC will act like a regular team member contributing to the research, same as everyone else on the team.
TC and RL can be the same person.
Other team members will work on the project under the leadership of the RL and the TC. Team members will be selected based on relevant skills, understandings and commitments to contribute to the project.
Applications for this camp will open in two stages:
RL applications
Team member applications:
Program
Afterwards
As part of the RL application process we will help you improve your project plan, mainly through comments on your document. How much support we can provide depends on the number of applications we get. However, everyone who applies on time (before October 6th) is guaranteed at least one 1-on-1 call with someone on the AISC team, to discuss your proposal.
Your application will not be judged based on your initial proposal, but on the refined proposal, after you had the opportunity to respond to our feedback. The final deadline for improving your proposal is November 3rd.
Your RL application will be judged based on:
Stipends are limited this round.
For participants, we have $99K left in our stipend pot, which translated over ~60 participants would mean that we can pay out $1K per team member and $1.5K per research lead for anyone who opts in.
For the rest, we are cash-strapped. We cannot reimburse software subscription or cloud compute costs.
We froze our salary funds from FTX. We organisers are volunteering our time because we think it matters.
If you have a project idea and you are willing to lead or guide a team working on this idea, you should apply to be RL.
We don’t expect a fully formed research plan! If we think your idea is suitable for AISC, we can help you to improve it.
If you are unsure, or have any further questions you are welcome to: