Affiliate Program

What does the program offer?

• Affiliates receive a salary of 5’000 USD/month/FTE. We are open to paying higher salaries to exceptional candidates.

  • We are, by default, looking for affiliates who will be joining the program full-time. That said, we are open to adapting to affiliates’ circumstances where this seems appropriate, such as joining the program in a part-time fashion. We also have the capacity to offer support to people who do not want to leave their current research position.

• Affiliates benefit from a range of support structures aimed at helping them focus on and advance in their research endeavors, such as:

  • Quarterly research retreats bringing together affiliates as well as other alignment researchers from our extended network

  • Personalized research and strategic support, typically in the form of bi-weekly calls with your point person (with option to adapt frequency of nature of support to affiliate’s needs and preferences)

  • Access to the PIBBSS research community and extended network, including joining our slack space, tailored introductions, opportunities to participate in workshops, etc.

  • Financial and administrative support in order to e.g. visit relevant research conferences, get access to base models and compute where required for research, etc.

  • Access to office space depending on the needs/preferences of affiliates.

  • Note: A key feature of the program is to provide highly tailored support to our affiliates, according to what counterfactually helps them most make progress on their research. As such, the above list, while representative, is not necessarily fully precise or comprehensive.

• The initial duration of the affiliateship is 6 months, at which point we review affiliates for a possible extension to 12 months. In exceptional circumstances, we will make initial offers of 12 months.

  • Our vision is for the affiliate program to provide a serious long-term home for promising researchers pursuing PIBBSS-style AI alignment research at time scales of 1 year and more, including the possibility of permanent positions.

• We want to build on and strengthen the supportive, curious and dedicated culture that PIBBSS has built over the last two years. We care about good epistemic practices while navigating the intricacies of making sense of a complex world and particularly emphasize the value of epistemic pluralism in doing so.

What does the program ask for?

The affiliate program is a very open-ended program with limited requirements. Here is what we asked from our affiliates:

• Submitting a quarterly report reflecting on your research progress and prospective research plan.

  • The reports are meant to help the affiliate by providing an accountability structure and encouraging them to zoom out and reflect on a regular basis. They also help us understand what affiliates have been working on and whether there is anything we can do to support them better going forward.

• Participating in our ~quarterly research retreats

• A genuine commitment to making progress on questions related to AI safety, alignment and governance, as well as constructive, truth-seeking and kind participation in our shared epistemic culture

What we are looking for in candidates?

Affiliates are selected for being in a strong position to pursue promising PIBBSS-aligned research directions in AI alignment in a highly self-directed fashion. As such, we are looking for (a mix of) the following characteristics:

• Scholarly competence/caliber in your domain(s) of expertise

• Strong prior understanding of AI risk & Alignment

• Evidence of good research judgment/taste

• Promisingness of your proposed line of research

• Ability to counterfactually benefit from what PIBBSS can offer

• Evidence for good research productivity, including strong self-management skills

Note that, in our experience, great PIBBSS-style researchers have often had non-standard backgrounds. As such, we wish to encourage individuals with varied backgrounds and perspectives to apply.