Manager (Technical Governance Team)

The Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) is a nonprofit based in Berkeley, California, focused on reducing existential risks from the transition to smarter-than-human AI. We've historically been very focused on technical alignment research. Since summer 2023, we have shifted our focus towards communication and AI governance. See our strategy update post for more details.

The Technical Governance Team (TGT) focuses on researching and designing technical aspects of regulations and policy that could lead to safe AI. The team works on:

• Designing plans for international coordination on AI development

• Making such coordination more viable, e.g., by identifying and building verification mechanisms

• Communicating with and consulting for policymakers and governance organizations

• Inputs into regulations, requests for comments by policy bodies (e.g. NIST/US CAISI, EU, UN)

Our previous publications are available on our website and blog. For some of the future projects we are excited about and a discussion of our worldview, see our research agenda.

In this role, you would manage a team working on the above areas, and have the opportunity to work on these areas directly.

This role could involve the following, but we are open to candidates who want to focus on a subset of these responsibilities. They are listed in approximate descending order of our need for them:

• Project management, e.g., track existing projects, motivate good work toward deadlines, identify blockers and help team members get unstuck on projects, provide judgment on how projects are going and whether they should continue

• People management, e.g., run future hiring rounds and fellowships, conduct performance reviews, running meetings, identify places where AI can speed up workflows, identify non-AI process improvements for team members

• Pre-publication review of the team’s outputs, e.g., ensuring our work meets the desired quality bar and is consistent with broader MIRI goals

• Internal stakeholder management, e.g., interface with the rest of MIRI and advocate for the team's interests

• External stakeholder management, e.g., build and maintain relationships with policy makers and AI company employees (the target audience for much of our work)

• Bonus: Research contributions, e.g., contributing to object level work

To assess whether you are excited about our team's work and want to accelerate it, we recommend looking through our research outputs and blog. Some of our team's activities are not public by default, such as our engagement with other researchers and policy makers. You are welcome to inquire about these during the hiring process.

We are looking for a manager who is broadly aligned with MIRI's values and wants to work toward MIRI’s goals (i.e., the world needs to build an Off Switch for AI), and the Technical Governance Team’s research directions (e.g., those described in our research agenda)

There are no formal degree requirements to work on the team, however we are especially excited about applicants who have a strong background in AI Safety and have particular previous experience or familiarity working in (or as) one or more of:

• Compute governance. Technical knowledge of AI hardware / chips manufacturing and related governance proposals.

• Policy (including AI policy). Experience here could involve writing legislation or white papers, engaging with policy makers or other research in AI policy and governance

• Strong AI Safety generalist. For example, you have produced good AI safety research and have a good overview-level understanding of empirical, theory and conceptual approaches, or otherwise have a demonstrated ability to think clearly and carefully about AI safety.

• Bonus: Research or engineering focused on frontier AI models or the AI tech stack. The role may involve creating or running model evaluations, benchmarking AI hardware, conducting scaling law experiments, and other empirical work.

We are also excited about candidates who are particularly strong in the following areas:

• Agency – You get things done without someone constantly looking over your shoulder. You notice problems and are motivated to fix them. You focus on solving the problem, not waiting to be told what to do. You know when to defer to another’s decision, and when to ask for guidance. You are an active member of the team, not a mindless cog in the machine.

• Conscientiousness – You are diligent and hard-working, and complete your work reliably and dependably. You desire to do tasks well and effectively. You pay attention to details and are organized, and able to manage lots of small tasks and projects.

• Comfort learning on the job – You enjoy and are able to quickly acquire new skills and knowledge as needed. You feel comfortable working on underspecified tasks where part of your job is to further develop the research questions appropriately.

• Generative thinking – You enjoy coming up with and iterating on new ideas. You can generate original work as well as extend others’ thoughts. You aren’t afraid to suggest things, or point out flaws in your or others’ thoughts.

• Communication (Internal) – You are a team player who is excited to work together with others and willing to attend several weekly meetings. You proactively keep teammates/manager in the loop about the status of projects you manage, when things are falling behind, when you need more information. You voice your confusions.

• Communication (External) – You are able to communicate effectively to external stakeholders who have a range of technical expertise, including policymakers. You can produce concise, clear, and compelling writing, and deliver presentations on the team's research and ideas.

• Application deadline - No current deadline, we will evaluate applications as they come in.

• Location – In-office (in Berkeley, CA). For exceptional candidates we may accept remote/hybrid.

• Compensation – $120–230k.

  • The range is due to the wide possibility space of experience and skills that candidates may bring.

  • We strive to ensure that all staff are paid an appropriate and comfortable living wage such that they feel fairly compensated and are able to focus on doing great work.

• Benefits – MIRI offers a variety of benefits including:

  • Health insurance (the best available plans from Kaiser and Blue Shield) as well as dental and vision coverage. (We cannot always offer comparable benefits to international staff.)

  • “No vacation policy” – staff are encouraged to take vacation when they want/need to in coordination with their manager.

• Visas – We can potentially sponsor visas for particularly promising candidates.