A 3-month interdisciplinary fellowship with mentors from AI safety
About the fellowship
The PIBBSS summer research fellowship is designed for researchers from various fields, mostly studying complex and intelligent behavior in natural and social systems but also those studying mathematics, philosophy or engineering, who are motivated by the mission of making AI systems safe and beneficial.
The next fellowship is due to take place between early June and early September 2025.
During the program, fellows work on selected projects at the intersection between their field of expertise and AI safety. Fellows will work in close collaboration with a mentor who will help them effectively navigate the AI Risk landscape and apply their knowledge to it.
The program is centrally aimed at Ph.D. or Postdoctoral researchers, however, we encourage interested individuals with comparable research experience in their field of expertise to apply regardless of their credentials.
We ran iterations of the same program in 2022, 2023, and 2024. Our fellows have gone on to work in academia, AI Safety labs, UK AISI, or started independent research among others. To learn more about our alumni and their research, check out their talks at the PIBBSS summer symposium.
Information sessions (recordings will be available later on the Fellowship page):
- 1st session: January 15th, 15:00 Pacific (18:00 Eastern, midnight Jan 16th Berlin, 08:00 Jan 16th Singapore) Link to Register
- 2nd session: January 17th, 09:00 Pacific (12:00 Eastern, 18:00 Berlin, 01:00 Jan 18th Singapore) Link to Register
Fellowship Program
The next fellowship is due to take place from early-mid June to early-mid September 2025. The location is to be confirmed, but it will take place in either the United States or the United Kingdom.
From the end of April, fellows attend a weekly reading group on AI risks lasting 8 weeks to give them the necessary baseline understanding of the AI risk landscape. Meanwhile, they meet several times remotely with the mentor to workshop the project proposal.
In June, Fellows and selected guests working in AI safety meet at a multi-day, in-person opening retreat to meet the cohort and learn about AI safety, complex systems, epistemic challenges of interdisciplinary work, and more.
Throughout the summer, while working in a shared office, fellows will benefit from a diverse program consisting of regular talks by external speakers, social events, and personal support sessions with program facilitators. We strive to create an engaging, educational, fun, and supportive research environment. Working remotely in the Fellowship is possible but discouraged and will only be considered for exceptional candidates.
At the end of the fellowship, besides submitting their work, fellows are expected to present their work in our yearly Symposium in September.
Fellows receive a stipend of 3,000 USD/month and are expected to work full-time on their projects over the course of the fellowship, though in rare cases, exceptions may be possible.
We provide various other sources of operational and fiscal support, e.g., we cover lunch, dinner, and snacks at the office and provide fellows’ fellowship-related travel costs, as well as an additional 1,000 USD/month allowance towards accommodation costs where applicable. For those who need it, we are able to provide invitation letters and documents for visas.
Cooperative AI Track
We are excited to announce a dedicated cooperative AI track for the 2025 fellowship, supported by the Cooperative AI Foundation. Up to 6 fellows will be selected for this track, which focuses on research that will reduce multi-agent risks and improve the cooperative intelligence of advanced AI systems.
Research areas of particular interest include:
- Understanding and evaluating cooperation-relevant capabilities
- Understanding cooperation-relevant propensities
- Multi-agent interactions and emergent behavior
- Information asymmetries and transparency
- Fundamental research advancing our understanding of cooperation in complex systems
The list above is not exhaustive, and we encourage you to explore the research areas listed for the CAIF grant program (including the technical and methodological guidelines) for a taste of the research direction we are looking for.
The program (like all of PIBBSS Fellowship) is background agnostic, but we especially welcome applications from researchers in game theory, multi-agent systems, behavioral economics, organizational psychology, network science, political science, anthropology, and biology – particularly those studying collective behavior and cooperation.
Applicants to the Cooperative AI track will go through the standard PIBBSS selection process, with an additional stage to review the research proposal and potentially conduct an interview with CAIF. You can indicate your interest in this track on the application form.
Application steps:
Deadline: 23:59 GMT January 26th, 2025
Submit your application through the application form.
Application materials:
- CV/résumé
- Personal statement: A 600-800 word statement discussing a) your research background and interests, and b) why you are motivated to participate in the fellowship.
- Past work (optional but recommended): We are interested in examples representative of your research interests, expertise, and/or scientific writing style.
You don’t need to have a specific project in mind when applying for the fellowship. Throughout the interview process, we learn more about each fellow’s interests and help them find a suitable mentor and project.
If you need an early response, please let us know in the application form by which date you need it. We will do our best to accommodate your requests. Otherwise, you can expect the final response by the end of March.
Successful applicants will be invited to stage two within approximately one week after the application deadline.
For the second stage, you will receive work tasks that you will be asked to complete within approximately one week. The trial tasks are meant to engage your research competencies and domain expertise. Expect about 4-6 hours of work in the early February. This work will be compensated.
Third stage of the application, you will be invited to an interview with the PIBBSS team. We are interested in getting to know you, your research interests, and future plans. At this stage, we are also looking to check for mentor-mentee fit to ensure a productive and insightful summer. For the interviews, please leave as much time as possible in the second half of February in order to find a convenient time slot.
If you pass the first three stages of the selection process, you will go through mentor matching where you will meet mentors and decide which one could be a good fit for your work, with them doing the same. There is low likelihood of not finding a suitable mentor in the last stage, but approximately 90% of applicants who make it this far find a suitable mentor
If the funding for your research is dependent on further approvals (of which we will let you know of at the end of stage 3) you may also need to interview with the funders to confirm research fit.
Who can apply?
The fellowship is aimed at scholars motivated to contribute to the positive development of advanced artificially intelligent systems, and with expertise in fields studying complex and intelligent systems, such as:
- Ecology and evolutionary biology
- Neuroscience and cognitive science
- Dynamical systems theory
- Physics & physics of information
- Various areas in philosophy
- Political & economic theory
- Social & legal theory
- Linguistics
- Media Studies
- and more…
If you are uncertain whether you would be a good fit for the program, please err on the side of applying and feel free to contact us.
The program is centrally aimed at Ph.D. or Postdoctoral researchers, however, we encourage interested individuals with substantial prior research experience in their field of expertise to apply regardless of their credentials. The first stage of the application is designed to be easy to complete.
We accept applicants from all countries.
PIBBSS Fellowship 2025 is funded by SFF, LTFF and AISTOF. For inquiries about funding our Fellowship, specific research directions, mentors or fellows, please contact us.