Who we are

We’re a non-profit that runs courses on some of the world’s most pressing problems. We’re looking for Teaching Fellows to guide weekly discussion calls with students on our AI alignment course.

We currently run the world’s largest courses on AI Safety, with a graduate community of over 2,000 individuals working in all the major AI companies, top universities and governments. The course is widely regarded as the go-to location to learn about AI Alignment, and the AI Safety Fundamentals website has over 10,000 unique visitors each month.

You can learn more about BlueDot Impact on our website.

What is a Teaching Fellow?

Course facilitators guide 1-2 cohorts through the course. They have weekly discussion calls with each cohort of 6-8 students to help them understand the course topics, dig deeper into specific areas of interest and support participants with steps after the course.

Our new facilitation approach is to have some facilitators (known as ‘Teaching Fellows’) support 5-10 cohorts. These Teaching Fellows are on part- to full-time contracts, and are more closely involved with ongoing curriculum and session plan development.

We’ve seen that compared to standard facilitators, Teaching Fellows tend to:

• Deliver higher-quality learning experiences
• Be better equipped to accelerate the impact of their participants after the course
• Provide more nuanced feedback on the curriculum

We created this role because we are excited to work more closely with facilitators to improve their teaching skills and continuously improve the course material. We believe these improvements will help deliver higher-quality learning experiences to participants and accelerate their impact.

What you’ll do

Teaching Fellows will:

• Host discussion groups with 5-10 cohorts
• Work with the course lead to improve the curriculum and session plans
• Support participants in 1-1 calls

We’ll support you with session plans, hosting guides and training. You’ll also gain access to a private Slack channel with other facilitators and the course lead to ask for help and give us feedback.

You’ll start in the week of October 14, 2024. The fellowship will last 16 weeks. The time commitment is roughly 2-3 hours per cohort per week: so 12-30 hours per week for 5 to 10 cohorts.

We’ll arrange the discussions at times that fit with both your and our participant’s availability. This is highly flexible, as we have demand at almost all times (including weekdays, weekends, and anytime of day or night). The times will remain fixed week-to-week.

If the initial 16 weeks go well, we’d be open to making this a longer-term role. We aim to run our courses back-to-back, meaning this could be a year-round position.

Location and compensation

This position is fully remote, and we accept applications from anywhere in the world.

Compensation is based on the number of sessions you facilitate, in line with our standard facilitator rates:

Based on data from previous Teaching Fellows about how much preparation and other work is required, this corresponds to a rate of £27-40/hour (note this is indicative, and actual pay will be via fixed session rates). The range depends on how familiar you already are with the material, and how many cohorts you take.

We sometimes disband or re-shuffle cohorts due to attendance. You may also volunteer to cover other facilitator’s sessions. In either of these cases, we will update your compensation in line with our standard facilitator rates.

About you

We are looking for someone who is passionate about supporting researchers to positively develop future AI systems.

To apply for this role, you must:

• Be familiar with the materials in our curriculum.
• Have previously worked in an area relevant to the course material (e.g. ML research, public policy, corporate governance, etc). You don’t need to be currently working in the field.
• Be fluent in English, and have reliable equipment that works well for video calls.
• Be able to ask people good questions, explain technical concepts to learners, and moderate productive discussions.

You might be particularly good for this role if you:

• Understand the AI safety field beyond our curriculum.
• Have contacts in the field to help participants make further connections.
• Have experience using active learning techniques.
• Have previously conducted research on AI safety.

Apply for this role

The application process consists of three stages:

• Stage 1: Initial application (<20 minutes).
• Stage 2: Interview (30 mins).

The interview will involve you hosting a practice session with interviewers role-playing as participants.

The deadline to apply as a Teaching Fellow is 2 weeks before the main course deadline. You can apply as a standard facilitator until the main course deadline.