Research Engineer - Chem-Bio (AI Safety Institute)
Publicerad 2024-07-02
Job summary
About the AI Safety Institute�
The AI Safety Institute is the first state-backed organisation focused on advancing AI safety for the public interest. We launched at the Bletchley Park AI Safety Summit in 2023 because we believe taking responsible action on this extraordinary technology requires a capable and empowered group of technical experts within government.��
We have ambitious goals and need to move fast.��
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.�Develop novel tools for AI governance. We will create practical frameworks and novel methods to evaluate the safety and societal impacts of advanced AI systems, and anticipate how future technical safety research will feed into AI governance.�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.�Our staff includes senior alumni from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, start-ups and the UK government, and ML professors from leading universities. We are now calling on the world�s top technical talent to join us. This is a truly unique opportunity to help shape AI safety at an international level.�
As more powerful models are expected to hit the market over the course of 2024, AISI�s mission to push for safe and responsible development and deployment of AI is more important than ever.�
What we value:�
Diverse Perspectives: We believe that a range of experiences and backgrounds is essential to our success. We welcome individuals from underrepresented groups to join us in this crucial mission.�Collaborative Spirit: We thrive on teamwork and open collaboration, valuing every contribution, big or small.�Innovation and Impact: We are dedicated to making a real-world difference in the field of frontier AI safety and capability, and we encourage innovative thinking and bold ideas.�Our Inclusive Environment: We are building an inclusive culture to make the Department a brilliant place to work where our people feel valued, have a voice and can be their authentic selves. We value difference and diversity, not only because we believe it is the right thing to do, but because it will help us be more innovative and make better decisions.�Job description
ABOUT THE TEAM
The mission of the Chem-Bio team is to minimise surprise to the UK and humanity from rapid and unexpected advances in AI, specifically at the intersection of AI with Chemistry and Biology.�
The way our team does this is by building evaluations to understand where and how AI might enable easier, faster, or completely novel progress in Chemistry or Biology. For instance, we evaluate whether an AI system can enable humans to conduct scientific work that would usually require expertise the human lacks � , a novice acting like a PhD-level expert. We evaluate such AI capabilities using automated question-and-answer benchmarks, longer form tasks, and randomized controlled trials involving human participants.�
We closely work with other teams within the AI Safety Institute and wider UK government to make sure our research has real-world impacts on AI safety and biosecurity through policy recommendations.�
THE ROLE
We expect candidates of varying levels of experience to apply and will likely fill two positions - one senior engineering lead who mentors and develops the overall Chem-Bio engineering team, and one research engineer who leads on the development and deployment of our automated evaluations (question-and-answer-based and task-based). In both roles, you�ll be working closely with the senior research scientist on the team ( a leading research scientist with experience across chem-bio subject matter and ML), workstream leads (a biotech PhD with multiple years of management consulting and Venture Capital experience and a biosecurity expert) as well as the more junior members of the team (scientists, research engineers, and delivery leads managing, , external contractors who are developing questions or tasks for us).
Within your team you�re expected to provide thought-leadership and mentorship on best-practice research engineering, as well as creative solutions to complex technical problems. You�ll spend most of your time doing collaborative research and writing production-quality research code. All of this is done within an extremely collaborative environment, where everyone does a bit of everything, and we love to pair & mob code!�
You�ll receive mentorship and coaching both from your manager, and the wider AISI team of world-famous researchers and other incredible staff (including alumni from DeepMind, OpenAI and ML professors from Oxford and Cambridge).�
Person specification
We are looking for someone with the following skills, experience, and attitudes.
Substantial experience working as an engineer, where you oversee teams writing production quality code, as well as designing, shipping, and maintaining complex tech products. For this position we would expect a minimum of ~4-6 years experience in relevant roles.Extensive Python experience, including understanding the intricacies of the language, the good vs. Bad Pythonic ways of doing things and much of the wider ecosystem/tooling.Experience working within multi-disciplinary teams to ship high quality products at pace. For more senior candidates, experience overseeing a team of capable engineers.A proven track record of building software systems to meet research requirements and have led or been a significant contributor to complex software projects.Ability to work in a self-directed way with high agency, thriving in a constantly changing environment and a steadily growing team, while figuring out the best and most efficient ways to solve a particular problemBring 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 and find new ways of getting things done within government Possess a strong curiosity in understanding AI systems and studying the security implications of this technology Motivated to conduct research that is not only curiosity driven but also solves concrete open questions in governance and policy making.Strong written and verbal communication skills.�For more senior candidates, the ability to provide technical mentorship and help more junior engineers grow their skill-set and challenge themselves. A proven track record of improving capability and standards across a team in a positive way.The following are also nice-to-have:
You�ll get extensive coaching on any of these that you don�t have, as they are all essential to you succeeding in the role.�
Experience working with a world-class research team comprised of both scientists and engineers ( in a top-3 lab).Comprehensive understanding of large language models ( GPT-4). This includes both a broad understanding of the literature, as well as hands-on experience with things like pre-training or fine tuning LLMs.Experience working at the intersection of ML with the natural sciences.Direct research experience ( PhD in a technical field and/or spotlight papers at NeurIPS/ICML/ICLR).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�workBenefits
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology offers a competitive mix of benefits including:
A culture of flexible working, such as job sharing, homeworking and compressed hours.Automatic enrolment into the , with an average employer contribution of 27%.A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by 1 day per year up to a maximum of 30.An extensive range of learning & professional development opportunities, which all staff are actively encouraged to pursue.Access to a range of retail, travel and lifestyle employee discounts.A hybrid office/home based working model where staff will spend a norm of 40-60% of their time in the office (minimum of 40%) over a month with flex dependent on balancing business and individual need.
