Back
BlueDot 2022 Cohort Analysis
webblog.bluedot.org·blog.bluedot.org/p/2022-ai-alignment-course-impact
Useful empirical reference for evaluating the effectiveness of AI safety education and talent pipeline programs; provides concrete outcome metrics for a structured cohort-based course intervention aimed at growing the AI safety field.
Metadata
Importance: 45/100blog postanalysis
Summary
BlueDot Impact's analysis of their 2022 AI Safety Fundamentals: Alignment course shows it increased the proportion of participants working on AI safety from 5% to 37% (342 participants), representing a net gain of 105 individuals entering the field. The post distinguishes between participants redirected into AI safety careers (20 people) versus those accelerated into roles they already planned for (85 people). BlueDot also notes significant improvements made to curriculum, tracking, and facilitator recruitment since 2022.
Key Points
- •Course increased participants working on AI safety from 18 (5%) to 123 (37%) of 342 accepted participants, a net gain of 105 individuals.
- •20 participants who had no prior interest in AI safety careers were redirected into the field, representing genuine counterfactual impact.
- •85 participants who already intended to work in AI safety were accelerated into impactful roles sooner than they otherwise would have been.
- •Cost per student was approximately £440, making this a relatively low-cost talent pipeline intervention at scale.
- •Since 2022, BlueDot has substantially improved curriculum quality, participant engagement tracking, and facilitator recruitment processes.
Cited by 1 page
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| AI Safety Field Building and Community | Crux | 0.0 |
Cached Content Preview
HTTP 200Fetched Mar 15, 20267 KB
2022 AI Alignment Course: 5→37% working on AI safety
BlueDot Impact
Subscribe Sign in Blog 2022 AI Alignment Course: 5→37% working on AI safety
Dewi Erwan May 20, 2024 Share Introduction
In 2022, we ran the second iteration of the AI Safety Fundamentals: Alignment course . The curriculum was designed by Richard Ngo , and the course was run by myself and Jamie Bernardi . The course’s objectives were to teach participants about AI alignment, motivate them to work in the field, and help them find opportunities to contribute. We received 450 applications, made 342 offers to join the course, and the cost per student was roughly £440.
This blog post analyses the career trajectories of the course participants, comparing how many were working on AI safety when they started the course vs how many are working on AI safety today.
Impact
In the course’s application form, we asked participants for their CV / LinkedIn profile, their experience in AI safety, and their career plans. By evaluating each individual using this information, we estimate only 18 participants (5% of 342) were working on AI safety when we accepted them onto the course.
To determine the number of course alumni working on AI safety today, we looked into each individual’s online presence, including their LinkedIn, personal website, blog posts, etc. looking for signs of AI safety-motivated work, and we sent out an alumni survey in January 2024 to learn more about their post-course actions. Our research suggests 123 alumni (37% of 342) work ~full-time on AI safety today, up 105 from 18 initially.
Of the 105, 20 expressed no interest in pursuing a career in AI safety in their initial application. Either they intended to pursue a different career, or had not done any career planning. We compared their plans from January 2022 with the actions they’ve taken since then and we evaluated their responses to the alumni survey. Based on this, we believe most of the 20 would not be working in AI safety today had they not participated in the course.
The other 85 expressed a desire to work in AI safety and had tentative plans for how they’d enter the field, but weren’t yet active contributors. Their responses to our alumni survey describe how the course accelerated their impact by helping them find impactful roles sooner, and giving them the tools to have a greater impact in those roles.
Now vs then
Our courses today are a major improvement over the course in 2022.
In 2022, the curriculum was a static list of resources and discussion plans were just a few open-ended prompts.
We now provide much higher-quality learning experiences via compelling
... (truncated, 7 KB total)Resource ID:
1a669a7d81752592 | Stable ID: ODliYzMzMT