About the job

Job summary

The AI Safety Institute (AISI) is looking for a visionary Head of Loss of Control Evaluations. With a focus on evaluating frontier AI systems for risky autonomous capabilities, you will spearhead the development of an evals R&D strategy, build and guide a skilled team, and collaborate with key external partners in AI labs and research organisations. This position offers a unique opportunity to push forward an emerging field in AI safety while part of an organisation that is a unique and fast-growing experiment in AI research and governance.

AISI is the first state-backed organisation focused on frontier AI safety for the public interest. We launched at the AI Safety Summit because we believe taking responsible action on this extraordinary technology requires a capable and empowered group of technical experts within government. Our staff includes senior alumni from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, startups and the UK government, and ML professors from Oxford and Cambridge. We are now calling on the world’s top technical talent to build the institute from the ground up. This is a truly unique opportunity to help shape AI safety at an international level.

We have ambitious goals and need to move fast. Our top priorities are to:

• Develop and conduct evaluations on advanced AI systems. We will characterise safety-relevant capabilities, understand the safety and security of systems, and assess their societal impacts.
• Drive foundational AI safety research. We will launch moonshot research projects and convene world-class external researchers.
• Facilitate information exchange. We will establish clear information-sharing channels between the Institute and other national and international actors. These include stakeholders such as policymakers and international partners.

The Loss of Control Workstream

Our research focuses on evaluating current and next-generation systems for capabilities that are precursors to extreme harms from loss of control. In particular, we are currently focusing on risks from autonomous replication and adaptation, and uncontrolled self-improvement. We will also create world-leading infrastructure for AISI and partners to run and interpret evaluations for autonomous AI systems. We expect candidates for this role to propose and refine the agenda for this risk area going forward.

Job description

The Role

We are seeking a Head of Loss of Control Evaluations to manage a team in the new chapter in AISI’s growth and play a key role in shaping the direction of our loss of control research and evaluations. In this role you will:

• Lead development of strategy for the Loss of Control workstream taking into account the rapidly changing AI ecosystem.
• Be responsible for delivering a set of evaluations (both in-house and externally-commissioned) and empower the team to prioritize and deliver its goals.
• Build the team; identify key talent gaps that are blocking delivery; find and pitch talent to address gaps; make final hiring decision for members of technical staff on the workstream.
• Identify and communicate with external partners relevant to delivery of work stream goals.
• Ensure evaluations are scientifically robust, actionable, communicable and consider the current state of research.
• Ensure AISI’s LoC evaluations use cutting edge capability elicitation methods.
• Enable the creation of a sustainable evaluation tech stack in coordination with AISI’s platform team.
• Work across AISI and with broader government to embed research outputs into core AISI products through government communications, research publications, and high-profile events like AI summits and conferences.

Person specification

Requirements & Experience

You would be a great fit if you:

• Are motivated by a strong desire to ensure positive outcomes for all of humanity from the creation of AI systems.
• Have substantial experience of technical research experience on cutting-edge ML (Deep Learning, Neural Nets) in industry, relevant open-source collectives, or academia.
• Have substantial experience running iterative product development teams or research teams (10+ cross-functional members) with a track record of shipping.
• Have a solid theoretical understanding of the breadth of the AI Safety / AI Alignment space and engaged with many approaches in the field in depth.
• Can set and steer research agendas towards the most impactful avenues of research and development.
• Have leadership experience; you can manage a team of dedicated engineers and researchers, able to inspire, guide and maximize the potential of a diverse team.
• Have practical and theoretical understanding of highly agentic systems, from a training or evaluation perspective.
• Are passionate about AISI’s mission, to develop the sociotechnical infrastructure needed to understand the risks of advanced AI and support its governance.
• Are comfortable adapting to input from others, collaborating with non-technical stakeholders and can articulate complex concepts to a wide variety of audiences.

We do not expect candidates to fulfil all these qualifications and we urge you to apply if you are inspired by this work.

Core requirements

• You should be able to spend at least 4 days per week on working with us.
• You should be able to join us for at least 12 months.
• You should be able work from our office in London (Whitehall) for parts of the week, but we provide flexibility for remote work.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £105,000, Department for Science, Innovation & Technology contributes £14,850 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

Please apply with a copy of your CV and a personal statement (500 word limit) setting out your answers to the questions below:

• Why are you interested in joining the AISI right now?
• What are the most important technical projects UK government needs to undertake within the next few months to advance AI Safety?
• What do you want to be doing to drive those projects forward?
• Is there anything else about your skills, experience or background you’d like us to be aware of?

Sift and interview process

In the event of a large number of applicants, applications will be sifted on the personal statement.

Candidates should expect to go through some or all of the following stages once an application has been submitted:-

Stage 1:- Coding Test - To be completed within 48 hours

Stage 2:- Sifting if successful at coding test

Stage 3:- Initial Interview

Stage 4:- Pre Interview take home test

Stage 5:- Formal interview and review of take home test

Stage 6:- Third stage interview

Stage 7:- Senior Civil Servant interview

Sift and interview dates

Expected Timeline subject to change

Sift dates: w/c 29/01/2024

Interview dates: w/c 05/02/2024

Interview Location: MS Teams.

Candidates are asked to note the above timetable, exercising flexibility through the recruitment and selection process.

If you have any questions about the role or your application, then please send an email to aisi-talentrecruitment@dsit.gov.uk

Further Information

Reasonable Adjustment

We are proud to be a disability confident leader and we welcome applications from disabled candidates and candidates with long-term conditions.

We fully support adjustments throughout our recruitment process and we encourage candidates to discuss their adjustment needs by emailing the job contact which can be found under the contact point for applicants section.

We do not have an exhaustive list of adjustments that we support but just some examples include additional time to complete your application form, behaviour questions up to 72 hours prior to interview and having extra time at interview.

If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section.

If successful and transferring from another Government Department a criminal record check may be carried out.

New entrants are expected to join on the minimum of the pay band.

A location based reserve list of successful candidates will be kept for 12 months. Should another role become available within that period you may be offered this position.

Please note terms and conditions are attached. Please take time to read the document to determine how these may affect you.

Any move to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk

DSIT does not normally offer full home working (i.e. working at home); but we do offer a variety of flexible working options (including occasionally working from home). 

In order to process applications without delay, we will be sending a Criminal Record Check to Disclosure and Barring Service on your behalf.

However, we recognise in exceptional circumstances some candidates will want to send their completed forms direct. If you will be doing this, please advise Government Recruitment Service of your intention by emailing Pre-EmploymentChecks.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk stating the job reference number in the subject heading. 

Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant’s details held on the IFD will be refused employment. 

A candidate is not eligible to apply for a role within the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5 year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government.

Feedback

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.