Launch a scrappy comms fellowship for undergrads: raise the funding, recruit comms-inclined students through AI safety group organizers, and run the inaugural cohort.
About the project
Why this matters (from Noah): One of the biggest bottlenecks in AI safety is making sure that when disaster strikes, there are people who can respond to the news and shape the narrative well. That takes a bench of people who can do comms, and the field is totally bottlenecked here, roughly because nobody has built the pipelines before. This fellowship is a first pipeline for something the field obviously needs.
Undergrads with comms skills currently have no obvious way into AI safety. This project launches a fellowship to fix that, built scrappily rather than waiting for perfect infrastructure.
The plan:
- Get funding (the easy part).
- Build a list of AI safety university group organizers and ask each of them for their most comms-inclined undergrads.
- Give those students real comms tasks and pay them: that is the inaugural cohort.
- Make a website so the fellowship is legible and repeatable.
Theory of change
Communications is a frequently cited talent gap in AI safety, and there is currently no dedicated pipeline for undergrads with comms skills. A fellowship that pays students to do real comms tasks produces useful output immediately, gives the students a track record, and tests demand on both sides (organizers supplying candidates, the field supplying tasks) before anyone invests in heavier infrastructure.
Your role
The mentee does most of the work of standing the fellowship up: funding outreach, building the organizer list, recruiting the first cohort, designing the tasks and stipends, and making the website. Noah provides direction and feedback (about 1 hour per week). If the project goes well, Noah will keep working with the mentee after SPAR ends.
Prerequisites
Someone who can be scrappy and get stuff done. Some social media or comms taste is a plus. No credentials required.
Application question(s)
Question 1: Tell us about something you organized or shipped with little support or infrastructure (an event, a club, a channel, a product, anything). What did you actually do, and what would you do differently now? (200 words max)
About the mentors
Noah Birnbaum was a contractor at Constellation, where he helped run the Generator Residency. He is co-president of the University of Chicago EA group.
Sydney Von Arx was a Member of Technical Staff at METR, where she worked on dangerous-capability evaluations, and is a co-author of METR's Measuring AI Ability to Complete Long Tasks. She co-founded the Atlas Fellowship, mentors for MATS, and advises the Generator Residency.