EA Forum Podcast (All audio) “Techies Wanted: How STEM Backgrounds Can Advance Safe AI Policy” by Daniel_Eth
TL;DR – Individuals with technical backgrounds are well-positioned to advance AI safety policy in numerous ways. Opportunities include both A) technical research directions, including evals, compute governance mechanisms, infosec, and forecasting, and B) career paths for advancing AI policy, including policymaking and communication efforts. Contrary to what many people assume, most of these roles do not require extensive political backgrounds or unusually good social skills, and many technical people who aren’t currently considering these paths would be a good fit. This post aims to encourage such people to consider these options.
Introduction
Over the past couple years, there has been a substantial increase in enthusiasm in the AI safety community for addressing AI risk through policy or governance solutions. Yet despite growing excitement for more policy work to address AI risk, many people with technical backgrounds may underestimate their personal fit for contributing to this area. Moreover, there are [...]
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Outline:
(00:53) Introduction
(01:52) The current state of AI policy - proposals often lack sufficient details for implementation and policymakers often have insufficient technical understanding
(04:26) People with technical backgrounds can help
(05:24) Things you can work on
(08:05) Technical research directions:
(08:09) Technical Infrastructure for AI Governance
(09:14) Evals
(12:44) Compute governance mechanisms
(17:02) Information security
(19:12) Technical mechanisms for mitigating policy downsides
(21:55) Strategic AI landscape analysis
(22:30) Forecasting and other similar analysis
(24:27) Macrostrategy/worldview investigation research
(27:49) Career Paths:
(28:12) USG policymaking pipeline
(29:45) Executive branch jobs
(33:35) Certain congressional staffer positions
(35:58) Traditional think tanks
(38:27) AI-risk focused governance and policy orgs
(40:48) Non-USG policymaking pathways
(41:09) Government policies in other countries
(42:59) International policymaking
(45:39) Corporate policymaking within AI companies
(48:14) Communication efforts
(48:46) Tech(-adjacent) journalism
(49:53) Other media engagement
(51:37) More direct stakeholder engagement
(54:21) Other:
(54:34) Support for any of the above (including earning to give)
(56:59) Other things I haven't considered
(57:35) Conclusion
(58:55) Acknowledgement:
The original text contained 10 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.
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First published:
May 26th, 2025
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.