Facilitate the AI Safety, Ethics and Society Course

Great facilitators make the difference between an outstanding experience and an average one for course participants. Facilitators' role is to guide discussions among cohorts of course participants and help them to engage productively with the course and with each other. By acting as a facilitator, you can increase the number of talented people that are able to contribute to reducing risks from advanced AI.

Why facilitate?

• Support more people to engage with AI safety.
  ‍Facilitators make a meaningful impact by guiding informative discussions that deepen participants' knowledge of key concepts and challenges. They help participants to have fruitful debates and better understand a variety of perspectives on these issues. Skillful facilitators also build participants’ confidence in navigating the field of AI safety and identifying how they might contribute. 
• Develop your own knowledge and expertise.
  ‍While facilitators will bring relevant background knowledge, the course is wide-ranging and provides a great opportunity to expose yourself to new ideas. Participants themselves will often bring unexpected views or ask thought-provoking questions that enrich facilitators’ understanding of these topics. 
• Enhance your leadership and communication skills.
  ‍You will build valuable skills by guiding diverse groups of participants through complex topics and ensuring inclusive, productive discussions. These skills are highly transferable to various professional and academic settings.‍
• Connect with talented people.
  ‍Facilitating the course provides an opportunity to build lasting relationships with participants and other facilitators. We aim to pair facilitators with participants that have a similar background, who might become future collaborators or colleagues.

What does facilitating look like?

The overall time commitment for running one group is roughly 5 hours per week over a total of 14 weeks. 

The expected dates for the next round of the course are:
- Course start: July 8th 2024
- Course end: October 4th 2024

We will provide a facilitator orientation session in the week before the course starts to ensure all facilitators are well-equipped to be successful.

The course will start with an icebreaker session where you can get to know the participants in your cohort. 

Over the following 8 weeks, you will meet weekly with course participants and facilitate a 2-hour group session via video call. You will also need around 3 hours per week to ensure you are on top of the course content and to handle course admin (e.g. weekly attendance reports) as well as any follow-ups from sessions. We’ll provide some examples of how to run each session to make it productive and enjoyable, but you are also welcome to adapt these to the needs and preferences of your group.

In the project phase of the course after week 8, you will run 4 weekly online sessions of 1-2 hours where participants can check in and get feedback on their projects. There will not be course content to review, but you will likely need to reserve around an hour per week for other preparation, course admin and follow-ups from sessions.

We will offer support for facilitators throughout the course via weekly check-ins with you and a Slack channel to share questions and ideas with other facilitators. If you have any questions or concerns, you can reach out to us directly on Slack or set up a call with the course manager.