AI Risk Mitigation Fund

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Viktor Warlop and Oliver Zhang: Funding to run the second iteration of SERI MATS, an alignment research seminar and mentorship program

Amount: $300,000.00

Award date: October 1, 2022

Focus area: Building research capacity

We funded the second iteration of SERI MATS, a seminar and independent research program aimed at identifying and accelerating the professional development of junior AI safety researchers.
Warlop and Zhang both had experience working on multiple field-building programs for the Stanford Existential Risk Initiative, such as hackathons and summer research programs. They had run one iteration of SERI MATS before.
SERI MATS gives people an opportunity to conduct research under the guidance of an experienced researcher. Current mentors include Ethan Perez (Anthropic), Owain Evans (Future of Humanity Institute), Neel Nanda (Deepmind) and Daniel Kokotajlo (OpenAI).

Outcomes: Since we funded the program many of their alumni have gone on to publish original research in top conferences, join safety teams at AI labs, and start their own AI safety research non-profits.

Note: this grant was made by the same grantmaking team under the Long-Term Future Fund. Read more about the AI Risk Mitigation Fund Team here.