AI Safety Researchers List Concrete Ways to Contribute Beyond Fellowships Like MATS
AndyMasley · x · 2026-11-07
A thread arguing "now is a really good time to work on AI safety" sparked a clarification: the author isn't just pointing people to MATS, noting plenty of valuable work exists outside safety fellowships:
- Replicate important AI safety papers and results
- Synthesize findings across papers on one topic, flag contradictions, and suggest what work could resolve them
- Read and summarize companies' risk reports and safety research; stress-test or explain important claims
- Maintain up-to-date field summaries: who's working on what, state of understanding, open questions
- Write explainers of key technical problems for busy non-technical readers
The core message: independent verification, synthesis, and explanation work is valuable even without a formal program.
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