Research Scientist/Research Engineer

About The AI Security Institute

The AI Security Institute is the largest team in a government dedicated to understanding AI capabilities and risks in the world. Our mission is to equip governments with an empirical understanding of the safety of advanced AI systems. We conduct research to understand the capabilities and impacts of advanced AI and develop and test risk mitigations. We focus on risks with security implications, including the potential of AI to assist with the development of chemical and biological weapons, how it can be used to carry out cyber-attacks, enable crimes such as fraud, and the possibility of loss of control.

The risks from AI are not sci-fi; they are urgent. By combining the agility of a tech start-up with the expertise and mission-driven focus of government, we’re building a unique and innovative organisation to prevent AI’s harms from impeding its potential.

Role Description

The AI Safety Institute research unit is looking for exceptionally motivated and talented Research Scientists and Research Engineers to work in the Societal impacts team. Societal Impacts is a multidisciplinary team that studies how advanced AI models can impact people and society. Core research topics include the use of AI for assisting with criminal activities, undermining trust in information, jeopardising psychological wellbeing, or for malicious social engineering. We are interested in both immediate and medium-term risks. In this role, you’ll join a strongly collaborative technical research team led by the Societal Impacts Research Director, Professor Christopher Summerfield. You will receive mentorship, training, and opportunities for development. You'll also regularly interact with our highly talented and experienced staff across the Institute (including alumni from Anthropic, DeepMind, OpenAI and ML professors from Oxford and Cambridge), as well as with other partners across government. In addition to Junior roles, Senior, Staff, and Principal RE positions are available for candidates with the required seniority and experience.

Person Specification

Successful candidates will work with other researchers to design and run studies that answer important questions about the effect AI will have on society. For example, can AI effectively change people's political and social views? Research Scientists/Engineers have scope to use a range of research methodologies and drive the strategy of the team.

Required Skills and Experience

We select based on skills and experience regarding the following areas:

• Writing production quality code
• Writing code efficiently, especially using Python
• Demonstrable interest in the societal impacts of AI
• Experimental design
• Demonstrable experience running research experiments involving AI models and/or human participants
• Strong quantitative skills
• Data analytics
• Data science methods
• Frontier model architecture knowledge
• Frontier model training knowledge
• Model evaluations knowledge
• AI safety research knowledge
• Research problem selection
• Research science
• Verbal communication
• Teamwork
• Interpersonal skills

Desired Skills and Experience

• Written communication
• Published work related to cognitive, social or political social science.
• Experience conducting multimodal evaluations or training multimodal models.
• A specialisation in a particular field of social or political science, economics, cognitive science, criminology, security studies, AI safety, or another relevant field.
• Front-end software engineering skills to build UI for studies with human participants.

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 are available below, salaries comprise of a base salary, technical allowance plus 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.

Selection Process

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check and get baseline personnel security standard (BPSS) clearance before they can be appointed. Additionally, there is a strong preference for eligibility for counter-terrorist check (CTC) clearance. Some roles may require higher levels of clearance, and we will state this by exception in the job advertisement.

Nationality requirements

We may be able to offer roles to applicants from any nationality or background. As such, we encourage you to apply even if you do not meet the standard nationality requirements.

Working for the Civil Service

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.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found.