This post is part of our monthly activity update series. Each activity update briefly describes what we’ve been up to in the last month and, hopefully, helps to shed light on how our priorities shift over time. Note that some of our time each month will be spent investigating future project opportunities that may not be covered in these posts until our plans are more solid.

Accomplishments

  • In collaboration with the Center for Human-Compatible AI (CHAI), we…
    • Identified and interviewed a promising candidate for CHAI’s office assistant position who is now being hired by CHAI as a limited appointment.
    • Examined various regulations to understand what purchasing support was enabled under the collaboration.
    • Commissioned multiple CHAI-specific academic poster templates in Powerpoint from an external designer.
    • Supported efforts at hiring for the collaboration at Effective Altruism Global at the BERI & CHAI careers event tables.
  • In collaboration with the Future of Humanity Institute (FHI), we hired four contractors to provide:
    • Research assistance to the Governance of AI Program
    • Operations and management assistance to the Governance of AI Program
    • Copy-editing for Nick Bostrom and other researchers as needed
    • LaTeX drafting and editing to prepare technical FHI reports
  • We advertised round one of our Project Grants Program and answered incoming questions from grantees, successfully attracting over 50 applicants.

Mistakes

  • We feel that there have been several occasions where BERI has inadequately explained its reasons for our activities (e.g., the reasons behind the structure we chose for our grants program, or our reasons for engaging in extensive due diligence before agreeing to certain forms of collaboration). While this has not been resolved, we are aware of this weakness, and we intend to work on improving our communication, especially with collaborators, over the next several months.

Works in Progress
We are…

  • Trialling another machine learning engineer candidate for our collaboration with CHAI.
  • Completing our first annual financial audit. (BERI has commissioned an outside auditor because we took in over $2 million in revenue last year.)
  • Evaluating the individual project grant applications we received.
  • Investigating six organizations for possible grants from BERI.
  • Looking to add to our contractor roster. In particular we hope to find a web designer and web developer.