Navigating the
development
of advanced AI

Mexico City

January 8 - March 1 2024

About

Join a cohort of people working on catastrophic risks from artificial intelligence

The program

The AI Futures Fellowship supports exceptional and impact-minded early-career individuals by providing an outstanding platform to learn and work on questions of advanced AI.

For eight weeks, fellows will join the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) in Mexico City and have the opportunity to interact with a rich intellectual community of AI researchers visiting Mexico City in January and February 2024 from various institutions, including Harvard University, Oxford University, Cambridge University, Centre for the Governance of AI, Institute for Law & AI, and OpenAI.

Fellows will pursue a project agreed upon with their mentor at the beginning of the program. We expect to tailor the mentor experience to each fellow’s projects and will do our best to get fellows the feedback they need. We generally expect fellows to produce a research report on a specific problem in various AI (sub-)fields, but we are open to multiple outputs. For example, fellows may also focus on learning more about a particular topic in AI, such as interpretability research, global race dynamics, or compute governance. Fellows may also collaborate with other participants or experts of the program.

There will be weekly meetings, seminars, and Q&As with leading experts in the field.

Candidates

We are looking for early-career individuals and students from all over the world. We expect most participants to be at the late undergraduate, Master, Ph.D., and postdoctoral levels, but other exceptional candidates are also welcome.

For our first cohort, we are particularly interested in applicants aiming to explore catastrophic and existential risks from AI. While we expect candidates to apply their research skills and knowledge to issues of advanced AI, they are not required to have previous technical experience or expertise in machine learning or AI.

In addition to a strong motivation to engage with global risks from AI, the ideal candidate will have the following strengths:

Ability to carry out self-directed research with limited supervision
Excellent written communication skills
Excellent problem-solving and critical-thinking skills

If you are hesitant to apply due to concerns about your qualifications or fit for the position, we encourage you to still submit an application.

Application closed

There will be no application round for 2025

A global focus on catastrophic risk from AI

The first cohort of the AI Futures fellowship will focus on catastrophic risks from AI, including existential risks. Why?

Artificial intelligence could significantly shape the future. It poses great risks to humanity but could also bring about unprecedented benefits. We believe that positively shaping the development of AI—such as by avoiding a global catastrophe—is one of the world’s most pressing challenges.

Since the deployment of ChatGPT, many high-profile AI researchers, academics, and policymakers have spoken about their concerns, and are motivated to take AI and its risks seriously. Recent years have also seen greater convergence in relevant research communities on what might be robust interventions in the AI global catastrophic and existential risk space (e.g., safety evaluations, interpretability research, and compute governance). Yet, a surprising number of these areas are critically under-researched. This provides a fertile starting point for fellows to explore and contribute specific insights and practically useful proposals on different approaches to reducing AI risk.

If you want to learn more about AI risk, we recommend the AGI Safety Fundamentals Courses, which include an introduction to AI Alignment and AI Governance.

The AI Futures Fellowship wants to attract global talent to improve AI safety and AI governance. Why?

Navigating the development of advanced AI is an extremely difficult challenge that requires global talent. We want to build a global community that supports opportunities for collaboration between fellows and experts from around the world. With the AI Futures Fellowship, we aim to equip individuals with the necessary resources and skills to play significant roles in the safe development of advanced AI.

Fellowship Highlights

You will receive full-time funding for eight weeks: $8,000 USD
Round-trip flights to Mexico City
1-1 career mentorship and collaboration opportunities with individuals from world-leading universities and AI organizations
Being part of a selective global cohort (~10 fellows)
ITAM affiliation and access to the university's spaces and networks
Access to our fantastic coworking space in La Condesa with other AI experts

Haab Project in La Condesa, where fellows will cowork with AI experts.

Selection process

Step 1 | General application form (closed)

Complete an application form. The form asks you to submit your CV and answer four questions about your motivations, career plans and concrete projects you could pursue.

We aim to send invitations to the interview stage and rejection emails by September 8. If you haven’t heard back from us by then, make sure to check your spam folder or contact us.

Step 2 | Interview

This stage will consist of one or two short online interviews. We plan to make the final decision shortly after that. You can let us know if you need an earlier decision.

We expect to announce fellows
by September 26.

If you have any questions about the process, please contact us at info@aifuturesitam.org
We very much look forward to receiving your application!