Winter 2024 CLR Foundations Course
This page is for the Winter 2024 iteration of our CLR Foundations Course. For general details on the course, please see this page.
Applications for this round are open here until Wednesday November 27th, 23:59 Pacific Time.
Content
The Foundations Course is designed to introduce people to CLR’s research on how transformative AI (TAI) might be involved in the creation of large amounts of suffering (s-risks). Our priority areas for addressing these risks include work on multiagent AI safety, AI governance, epistemology, risks from malevolent or fanatical actors, and macrostrategy.
We recommend people consider the Center for Reducing Suffering’s S-risk Introductory Fellowship if they are interested in learning about work on s-risks unrelated to these topics, and consider BlueDot’s AI Safety courses if they are interested in learning about existential risks from TAI.
Target audience
We think the Foundations Course will be most useful for you if you are interested in reducing s-risk through contributions to CLR’s priority areas, and are seriously considering making this a priority for your career. They could also be useful if you are already working in an area that overlaps with CLR’s priorities (e.g. AI governance, AI alignment), and are interested in ways you can help reduce s-risks in the course of your current work.
We recommend those interested in our Summer Research Fellowship first take part in the Foundations Course, though participation is not a prerequisite.
The CLR Foundations Course will be most useful for you if you have not yet interacted extensively with CLR, e.g., you have talked with us about s-risks for less than 10 hours. If you have interacted more with us, you may be interested in the CLR S-Risk Seminars .
There might be more idiosyncratic reasons to apply and the criteria above are intended as a guide rather than strict criteria.
Logistics
The upcoming Foundations Course will take place between Monday December 9th and Friday January 18th, with a two week break between Saturday December 21st and Sunday January 5th.
| Applications close | Wednesday November 27th, 23:59 Pacific Time |
| Offers & logistics sent out | By end of day Thursday December 5th |
| Week 1 | Week of Monday December 9th |
| Week 2 | Week of Monday December 16th |
| Week 3 | Week of Monday January 6th |
| Week 4 | Week of Monday January 13th |
Some potential participants may have schedules that do not permit them to join group discussion calls. It’s likely possible to participate in the core program asynchronously; just note this on your application.
Apply
The application form for the Winter 2024 CLR Foundations Course is here. The application deadline is Wednesday November 27th, 23:59 Pacific Time. If you do not have time to submit an application by this deadline but are interested in participating, please contact us (the earlier the better) and we may be able to accommodate your needs.
We will also likely run another iteration of the Foundations Course in Spring 2025. If you would like to be notified about these or future introductory programs, please sign-up for updates here.
Contact
If you have any questions about the program or are uncertain whether to apply, please reach out to james.faville@longtermrisk.org.