Introducing Kairos: a new AI safety fieldbuilding organization (the new home for SPAR and FSP)

By Agustín Covarrubias 🔸, Topaz @ 2024-10-25T21:59 (+71)

TL;DR

• We’re announcing Kairos, a new AI safety fieldbuilding organization focused on the early career talent pipeline.
• We’re the new home for two programs:
  • FSP, which provides semester-based mentorship for organizers of AI safety university groups
  • SPAR, a program that pairs early career individuals to work on three-month AI safety research projects alongside experienced mentors
• We’ve opened applications for the next round of FSP (starting in December 2024) and expressions of interest for SPAR (starting in February 2025).

Announcing Kairos

We’re excited to announce the launch of Kairos^[1], a new AI safety fieldbuilding organization focused on strengthening the early career talent pipeline. Kairos will serve as the new institutional home for two existing programs: the Supervised Program for Alignment Research (SPAR), a mentorship program now on its fifth iteration, and the Fieldbuilder Support Program (FSP), a program in its second iteration.

We believe that growing and strengthening the infrastructure for AI safety talent is among the most promising fieldbuilding efforts, so we’re now focused on improving what we think are critical and neglected segments of the pipeline. We’re also planning to run a number of smaller, targeted support programs for AI safety groups. We hope to share more about our broader plans in the coming months.

Fieldbuilder Support Program (FSP)

FSP is a mentorship program (recently spun off of CEA’s Groups Team) that supports university AI safety group organizers in establishing and running their groups. During the program, organizers get paired with mentors who guide them through defining their group’s strategy and planning their semesters, as well as following up on their progress. The program has an initial period of three weeks, but most participants go on to be mentored for their entire semester.

Applications are now open!

• The program will run from December 5th, 2024, through to the next semester
• Each interested group organizer must apply separately

We’re also looking for experienced existing or former group organizers to participate as paid mentors for the program. See here for details.

Supervised Program for Alignment Research (SPAR)

SPAR is a virtual, part-time research program that connects early-career individuals with experienced AI safety researchers. Participants work on 3-month projects in both technical and governance areas, with mentees typically committing 5-20 hours per week.

Expressions of interest are now open!

• The program will run from February 10th to May 17th, 2025
• Mentor applications will open in early November
• Mentee applications will open in December

If you're interested in contributing to AI safety field-building, whether as a student, professional, mentor, or researcher, we encourage you to get involved with our programs.

1. ^{^}

    Kairos is an ancient greek word meaning  “the critical moment” or the “the right moment to act”. Thanks to @Nicholas Marsh for coming up with the name.