Announcing the CLR Foundations Course and CLR S-Risk Seminars

By James Faville, Center on Long-Term Risk @ 2024-11-19T01:18 (+30)

Center on Long-Term Risk (CLR) is accepting applications to the next iteration of our introductory fellowship. We are now planning to run two related programs: the CLR Foundations Course and the CLR S-Risk Seminars.^[1]

The CLR Foundations Course will introduce people to CLR’s research on s-risk reduction. Apply by Wednesday November 27th, 23:59 Pacific Time.

The CLR S-Risk Seminars will dive deeper into different priority cause areas within s-risk reduction and is intended for people who have completed the CLR Foundations Course or have a similar level of context. 

What topics does the CLR Foundations Course discuss?

The Foundations Course is designed to introduce participants to CLR’s research on how transformative AI (TAI) might be involved in the creation of large amounts of suffering (s-risks). Our priority areas for addressing these risks include work on multiagent AI safety, AI governance, epistemology, risks from malevolent or fanatical actors, and macrostrategy.

We recommend people consider Center for Reducing Suffering’s S-risk Introductory Fellowship if they are interested in learning about work on s-risks beyond these priority areas, and consider BlueDot’s AI Safety courses if they are interested in learning about existential risks from TAI.

Note that some prior familiarity with discourse surrounding TAI and AI safety will be helpful.

Who are these programs a good fit for?

We think the Foundations Course and S-Risk Seminars will be most useful for you if you are interested in reducing s-risk through contributions to CLR’s priority areas, and are seriously considering making this a priority for your career. They could also be useful if you are already working in an area that overlaps with CLR’s priorities (e.g. AI governance, AI alignment), and are interested in ways you can help reduce s-risks in the course of your current work.

We recommend those interested in our Summer Research Fellowship first take part in the Foundations Course and an S-Risk Seminar, though participation is not a prerequisite. This way you have a better sense of what work on our priority areas involves, and are better able to “hit the ground running” if accepted.

There might be more idiosyncratic reasons to apply and the criteria above are intended as a guide rather than strict criteria.

Foundations Course

The CLR Foundations Course will be most useful for you if you have not yet interacted extensively with CLR, e.g., you have talked with us about s-risks for less than 10 hours.

S-Risk Seminars

The CLR S-Risk Seminars are most useful for people who are already familiar with CLR’s thinking on the most pressing sources of s-risk, and have some rough idea of what they might be the best fit for work on. These programs will be more technical and may require domain-specific knowledge or skills as a prerequisite. They will only be open to people who have either first done the Foundations Course, or have an equivalent amount of context.^[2]

When and how long are these programs?

Foundations Course

The upcoming Foundations Course will take place between Monday December 9th and Friday January 18th, with a two week break between Saturday December 21st and Sunday January 5th.

Some potential participants may have schedules that do not permit them to join group discussion calls. It’s likely possible to participate in the core program asynchronously; just note this on your application.

S-Risk Seminars

We are not yet sure what format the S-Risk Seminars will follow^[3], or how many will be run. Likely topics for specialised programs include:

• S-risk-motivated AI governance
• Malevolence and fanaticism
• Game-theoretic approaches to AI conflict mitigation
• Epistemic considerations for s-risk reduction

We intend to customise seminar offerings based on participant availability, background, and interest.

How do I apply to these programs?

The application form for the CLR Foundations Course is here. The application deadline is Wednesday November 27th, 23:59 Pacific Time. If you do not have time to submit an application by this deadline but are interested in participating, please contact us (the earlier the better) and we may be able to accommodate your needs.

We are not yet accepting applications for the CLR S-Risk Seminars.

If you are interested in a S-Risk Seminar but have sufficient context to skip the Foundations Course, we encourage you to fill out this expression of interest form and we will be in touch soon.

We will also likely run another iteration of the Foundations Course in Spring 2025. If you would like to be notified about these or future introductory programs, please sign-up for updates here.

I have questions!

If you have any questions about these programs or are uncertain whether to apply to the Foundations Course, please leave a comment here or reach out to james.faville@longtermrisk.org.

1. ^{^}

    These programs will replace our previous “S-Risk Introductory Fellowship”, which covered elements of both the Foundations Course and the S-Risk Seminars. The S-Risk Seminars will cover additional content that was not in the S-Risk Introductory Fellowship, however, and so could be a good fit for people who have previously completed the S-Risk Introductory Fellowship.

2. ^{^}

   E.g. from having talked to CLR extensively, having done a previous round of our S-risk Introductory Fellowship, or from having done our Summer Research Fellowship.

3. ^{^}

   We are considering a 3-6 week format structure similar to the Foundations Course, as well as more intensive multi-day formats.