Anthropic Fellows Program
Summary
Anthropic is initiating a 6-month fellowship program for 10-15 technical professionals to conduct full-time AI safety research with mentorship and funding. The program aims to expand the pool of researchers working on critical AI alignment challenges.
Review
The Anthropic Fellows Program represents a strategic initiative to address the talent gap in AI safety research by providing structured support and mentorship to mid-career technical professionals. By offering a comprehensive package including a $2,100 weekly stipend, research funding, and guidance from leading researchers like Jan Leike and Ethan Perez, the program seeks to lower barriers to entry in this critical field and cultivate new research talent.
The program's approach is notable for its emphasis on diversity of perspectives and openness to candidates without prior AI safety experience, focusing instead on technical excellence and genuine commitment to developing safe AI systems. By targeting research areas like Scalable Oversight, Adversarial Robustness, and Model Interpretability, the fellowship aims to produce tangible research outputs, with an explicit goal of having each Fellow co-author a research paper. This structured yet flexible model could serve as a template for other organizations seeking to expand the AI safety research ecosystem and address potential existential risks from advanced AI systems.
Key Points
- Provides funding and mentorship for 10-15 AI safety researchers over 6 months
- Targets mid-career technical professionals interested in transitioning to AI safety research
- Focuses on critical research areas like oversight, robustness, and model interpretability