Recap
🏗️ Breaking Barriers SF Hackathon
60+ Builders came together on July 18 to tackle bridging the gaps in the AI Safety Ecosystem. Winners include:
🥇1st - licensedcompute.org: A blueprint for compute governance by Edward Paulino
🥈2nd - AI Parent Project: a hub for parents to understand AI Safety legislation by Fajar Akhter
🥉3rd - AI 2027 Wargame: explore the AI 2027 takeoff through gameplay and simulation by Rafael DeJesus
Reach out if you’d like to collaborate! Thank you to all the participants on leveraging your creative juices to tackle humanity’s next greatest challenge.
⭐ AI Safety Career Fair & Builders Summit
We had a fantastic summit on July 24 with professionals across the ecosystem, like Cybersecurity, Trust & Safety. Feedback shows the connections & conversations were the greatest highlight.
Programming included Beyond the Highlighted Path by Vaidehi, The Path to Victory is through Politics by Rohan, How to build an AI Safety org from 0 by Akshyae, AI, Animals, & Digital Minds by Allen, and Technical Governance 101 by Jonathan.
Recommended Reading: I'm an experienced software engineer. How can I contribute to AI safety?
You can find my personal retrospective here.
Upcoming Events
🌍 Planetary Engineering: The Most Neglected Lever on Climate?
Mon, Aug 10 | Climate change gets enormous attention; deliberately engineering the planet to counteract it gets almost none. Yet solar radiation modification (SRM), injecting aerosols into the stratosphere, brightening marine clouds, could offset a large fraction of warming within years, at a cost measured in billions rather than trillions. Join us to learn more & discuss!
🌹 EAGxBerkeley Conference
Fri, Aug 21-23 | Come mingle at Lighthaven with the broader Bay Area community. Always a 10/10 vibe 🙂
Adjacent Events (On the Calendar)
Mondays | 9030 ML Reading Club
Aug 12 | The AGI Transition: How AI Affects Work and Life
Aug 14-16 | Apart Research Digital Minds Research Sprint
Aug 14 | Inside The AI Whistleblower Initiative: What to Know About Speaking Up at an AI Lab
Resources & Opportunities
Workshops, Programs, & Incubators
[Due Aug 3] Lens Academy Courses - free, guided courses on AI Risk Fundamentals; Forecasting, Modeling, and Shaping AI Futures; and Compute Verification. Run, don’t walk!
[Due Aug 5] Global Challenges Project - 3-day workshop for participants to explore AI safety and biosecurity. This one targets students + early professionals <2 years.
[Due Aug 7] BlueDot Incubator Week - fully-funded week-long 0-1 program
[Due Aug 9] Better Futures Fellowship - 9-week pilot for people deciding whether better-futures work should become their focus
[Due Aug 9] Sentient Futures Project Incubator - 10-week remote program for improving the welfare of future sentient beings, across animal welfare, artificial minds, and AI governance.
[Due Aug 9] Lateral Workshop - 3-day workshop for experienced professionals moving into AI safety.
[Due Aug 16] Technical Longitude DC Intensive - fully funded 8-day program for technical AI safety professionals who want to put their expertise to work in policy. No policy experience required.
[Due Aug 17] Technical AI Alignment Fellowship - fully-funded 8-week Alignment research program. ML experience required.
[Due Aug 18] SPAR AI - part-time remote research fellowship.
[Due Aug 25] AI Civic Action Accelerator - free, 6-session, part-time program that helps individuals and teams refine and advance promising policy solutions to civic artificial intelligence (AI) challenges
[Rolling] SapiensFirst Fellowship - Hands-on activism and movement building fellowship
Opportunities in the SF Bay Area
🟢 Hiring: Check out the tabling organizations from the AI Safety Career Fair! tinyurl.com/ais-career-fair-table2
Collaboration Network for AIS Projects:
Join the new Career Transition Slack Channel of the Bay Area EA Slack for more timely updates on opportunities 🙂
Mangrove.One (Early Access Pilot)
Member Spotlight
👋 Meet Chiffon!
💬 Talk to me about… anything you see on my website, including AI safety, AI x animals, social impacts of AI on education and future of work, world philosophy (outside Western mainstream), US & world politics.
🌏 Fun fact
By age 22, I had lived in 7 countries/regions for at least two months each, outside my home country: Canada, the US, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Argentina, and Germany
🛠️ What's a tool, book, website, or resource that's been a game changer?
The combination of cmux & Claude Code / Codex has accelerated how much I can do AI research, contribute to community projects, or even build tools for my mom, by precisely describing my ideas
🍨 Favorite ice cream flavor?
Pistachio/matcha
Another day, another month!
I grow little of the food I eat, and of the little I do grow, I did not breed or perfect the seeds.
I do not make any of my own clothing.
I speak a language I did not invent or refine. I did not discover the mathematics I use.
I am protected by freedoms and laws I did not conceive of or legislate, and do not enforce or adjudicate.
I am moved by music I did not create myself.
When I needed medical attention, I was helpless to help myself survive.
I did not invent the transistor, the microprocessor, object oriented programming, or most of the technology I work with.
I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well being - Steve Jobs
