Research Scientist- Strategic Awareness London, UK

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 AISI is uniquely positioned to mobilize them. With our resources and the UK government\’s unique agility and international influence, this is the best place to shape both AI development and government action.

Overview

The mission of our team is to harness technical insights on AI trajectories to inform governmental preparedness for the greatest challenges of transformative AI. To achieve this, we conduct deep dives on critical uncertainties regarding AI trajectories and impacts, track key indicators and warning signals, and produce briefs for key government decision makers. We also provide technical assistance on preparedness and policy development.

Role Summary

As Research Scientist, you will play a critical role in driving the research work of the Strategic Awareness team. This involves conducting rapid deep dives on policy-relevant questions on AI trajectories, contributing to products to communicate these findings to key decision makers, and applying research findings to preparedness and policy development. You will collaborate with experienced policy advisors and team members who specialise in communicating findings to key government decision makers.

We are looking for candidates with a “T-shaped” profile, with broad knowledge of frontier AI research and safety, and with deep expertise in a relevant topic area or set of methodologies. Depending on your expertise, you may lead work on AI capability trends and forecasts, or work on implications such as labour market impacts or loss of control risks. You may conduct literature reviews, leverage expert interviews, use forecasting methodologies, analyse data and model evaluation results, or conduct survey research.

Person Specification

To set you up for success, we are looking for the following skills, experience and attitudes, but not all need to be the case for all candidates. We are flexible in shaping the role to your background, expertise, and level of experience.

• Critical and strategic thinking ability – track record and proven ability to identify and prioritise most insightful approaches for answering underspecified questions.
• Experience in deeply examining AI trajectories towards transformative AI and associated impacts.
• Broad knowledge on frontier AI model development and safety, including frontier AI research and training, evaluations, scaling laws, compute stack, real world adoption, particular impacts or risks such as labour market impacts or loss of control risk, particular jurisdictions such as the non-Western AI ecosystem.
• Deep expertise in one or more key topic areas OR critical methodology for the team, including but not limited to:
• Topic areas: frontier AI research and training, evaluations, scaling laws, compute stack, real world adoption, particular impacts or risks such as labour market impacts or loss of control risk, geopolitical considerations, particular jurisdictions such as the non-Western AI ecosystem.
• Methodologies: forecasting, quantitative modelling, national security indicators.
• Broad range of empirical research methodology and data science skills, including quantitative forecasting/modelling AI progress; statistical analysis; building dashboards and data visualization.
• Proven track record of excellent writing skills, with ability to understand and communicate complex technical concepts for non-technical stakeholders and synthesize scientific results into compelling narratives.
• Affinity for scrappy and highly iterative work with fast feedback loops.
• 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. Motivated to conduct technical research with an emphasis on direct policy impact rather than exploring novel ideas of mainly academic interest.
• Ability to work autonomously and in a self-directed way with high agency, thriving in a constantly changing environment and a steadily growing team.
• Bring your own voice and experience but also an eagerness to support your colleagues together with a willingness to do whatever is necessary for the team’s success.

Salary & Benefits

We are hiring individuals at all ranges of seniority and experience within this research unit, and this advert allows you to apply for any of the roles within this range. Your dedicated talent partner will work with you as you move through our assessment process to explain our internal benchmarking process. The full range of salaries is available below, with base salary, technical allowance, and additional benefits as detailed on this page.

• Level 3 – Total Package £65,000 – £75,000 inclusive of a base salary £35,720 plus additional technical talent allowance of between £29,280 – £39,280
• Level 4 – Total Package £85,000 – £95,000 inclusive of a base salary £42,495 plus additional technical talent allowance of between £42,505 – £52,505
• Level 5 – Total Package £105,000 – £115,000 inclusive of a base salary £55,805 plus additional technical talent allowance of between £49,195 – £59,195
• Level 6 – Total Package £125,000 – £135,000 inclusive of a base salary £68,770 plus additional technical talent allowance of between £56,230 – £66,230
• Level 7 – Total Package £145,000 inclusive of a base salary £68,770 plus additional technical talent allowance of £76,230

This role sits outside of the DDaT pay framework given the scope of this role requires in-depth technical expertise in frontier AI safety, robustness and advanced AI architectures.

There are a range of pension options available which can be found through the Civil Service website.

Selection Process

In accordance with the Civil Service Commission rules, the following list contains all selection criteria for the interview process.

This post requires Security Clearance (SC), which requires at least 2 years of UK residency, and a willingness to undergo Developed Vetting (DV) if required. More detail on clearance eligibility can be found on the UK Government website.

The Civil Service Code 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. 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.

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