Safeguards Technical Governance Researcher

AI Security Institute; City Of London; Hybrid; GBP 65,000 - 145,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading AI security organization in London seeks a Technical Governance Researcher to drive research focused on AI safety and governance. This role demands strong communication skills and experience in AI or machine learning, as the researcher will engage with various stakeholders and produce impactful documentation. Flexible working options and generous benefits accompany a competitive salary range of £65,000 to £145,000, depending on experience.

Benefits

Annual leave and public holidays

Paid parental leave

Learning and development stipends

Work-from-home equipment stipends

Discounts and benefits for cycling to work

Qualifications

• Experience working in AI security or related fields.
• Strong ability to manage diverse stakeholders.
• Capacity to create compelling documents for different audiences.

Responsibilities

• Ideate and draft technical governance research.
• Understand relevant research from various sources.
• Deliver clear documents that are valued by stakeholders.

Skills

Experience in machine learning

Strong research skills

Extremely strong written and verbal communication

Red-teaming experience

Understanding of large language models

Ability to work self-directed

Job description

About the AI Security Institute

The AI Security Institute is the world's largest and best-funded team dedicated to understanding advanced AI risks and translating that knowledge into action. We're in the heart of the UK government with direct lines to No. 10, and we work with frontier developers and governments globally.

We're here because governments are critical for advanced AI going well, and UK AISI is uniquely positioned to mobilise them. With our resources, unique agility and international influence, this is the best place to shape both AI development and government action.

Role Description

As AI systems become more capable and integrated into the economy, they will increasingly be targeted by adversaries looking to take advantage of their weaknesses.

AISI's Safeguards Analysis team works to understand, evaluate, and improve the technical measures to address these risks ("safeguards"). The team has previously performed pre-deployment tests of leading frontier models, and published new datasets and attacks.

Our research enables us to develop insights on the safety of frontier systems, which are most impactful when shared.

As a government body, we are well positioned to go beyond technical output and perform research on technical governance relating to safeguards. In this vein, we have already published our Principles for Safeguard Evaluations, which lays out an approach for effective evaluation of frontier AI system safeguards.

There are many more pieces of technical governance research we think are important, such as:

• How can the outputs of safeguard evaluations be made actionable and decision-relevant?
• How can risk from fine-tuning API access be managed effectively?
• What are effective methods for differential or structured access to advanced AI capabilities?

Many of these directions have both a technical component and a governance component, and this role would involve working closely with those performing technical work (and potentially performing technical work yourself) to ensure it is focused on producing actionable insights from a governance perspective.

We're excited for a technical governance researcher to drive forward this work. As these projects draw extensively from the team's broader work and are high priority, this researcher will work closely with the workstream lead and other researchers to reflect the team's prioritisation and experience.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Ideating, developing and drafting technical governance research on safeguards.
• Reading and understanding in detail relevant research from both within and outside AISI to ensure governance research output is technically informed and grounded.
• Delivering compelling and well-written documents that are received well by relevant stakeholders and audiences.
• Managing multiple stakeholders (both technical and non-technical) involved in producing the research outputs.

Person Specification

You may be a good fit if you have some of the following skills, experience and attitudes:

• Experience working on machine learning, AI, or AI security in industry, in academia, or independently.
• Strong research taste and experience, including ideating new research or technical governance products, executing independently and effectively on completing those produces and delivering them successfully to achieve high impact.
• Extremely strong written and verbal communication skills, both for technical and non-technical communication and audiences.
• Designing, delivering, and maintaining complex written products while managing diverse stakeholders and audiences
• Red-teaming experience against any sort of system.
• A broad understanding of large language models and the risks surrounding them.
• Ability to work in a self-directed way with high agency, thriving in a constantly changing environment and a steadily growing team, while figuring out the best and most efficient ways to solve a particular problem.
• Bring your own voice and experience, with an eagerness to support your colleagues, prioritise the team's success, and find new ways of getting things done within government.
• Have a sense of mission, urgency, and responsibility for success, demonstrating problem-solving abilities and preparedness to acquire any missing knowledge necessary to get the job done.

What We Offer

Impact you couldn't have anywhere else

• Incredibly talented, mission-driven and supportive colleagues.
• Direct influence on how frontier AI is governed and deployed globally.
• Work with the Prime Minister's AI Advisor and leading AI companies.
• Opportunity to shape the first & best-resourced public-interest research team focused on AI security.

Resources & access

• Pre-release access to multiple frontier models and ample compute.
• Extensive operational support so you can focus on research and ship quickly.
• Work with experts across national security, policy, AI research and adjacent sciences.

Growth & autonomy

• If you're talented and driven, you'll own important problems early.
• 5 days off learning and development, annual stipends for learning and development and funding for conferences and external collaborations.
• Freedom to pursue research bets without product pressure.
• Opportunities to publish and collaborate externally.

Life & family

• Modern central London office (cafes, food court, gym) or option to work in similar government offices in Birmingham, Cardiff, Darlington, Edinburgh, Salford or Bristol.
• Hybrid working, flexibility for occasional remote work abroad and stipends for work-from-home equipment.
• At least 25 days' annual leave, 8 public holidays, extra team-wide breaks and 3 days off for volunteering.
• Generous paid parental leave (36 weeks of UK statutory leave shared between parents + 3 extra paid weeks + option for additional unpaid time).
• On top of your salary, we contribute 28.97% of your base salary to your pension.
• Discounts and benefits for cycling to work, donations and retail/gyms.

Salary

Annual salary is benchmarked to role scope and relevant experience. Most offers land between £65,000 and £145,000 (base plus technical allowance), with 28.97% employer pension and other benefits on top.

• Level 3: £65,000-£75,000 (Base £35,720 + Technical Allowance £29,280-£39,280)
• Level 4: £85,000-£95,000 (Base £42,495 + Technical Allowance £42,505-£52,505)
• Level 5: £105,000-£115,000 (Base £55,805 + Technical Allowance £49,195-£59,195)
• Level 6: £125,000-£135,000 (Base £68,770 + Technical Allowance £56,230-£66,230)
• Level 7: £145,000 (Base £68,770 + Technical Allowance £76,230)