You're pledging to donate if the project hits its minimum goal and gets approved. If not, your funds will be returned.
$28,750 left to reach the funding goal.
I am requesting $28,750 as financial support to (i) continue my work as a navigator/instructor for several Lens Academy's advanced AI safety courses, and (ii) developing new country-specific courses / curricula on middle powers and frontier AI governance
Goal 1: Supporting Lens Academy learners and course participants as a navigator/facilitator/instructor in their engagement with advanced AI safety materials, including the following courses: (i) Compute Verification 1 (ii) Compute Verification 2 (iii) AI Controls Fundamentals (iv) AI Risk Fundamentals (v) one additional course (tbd). I hope to facilitate at least three iterations of each of these courses over the next 6-9 months, which is approximately 375 hours of work, per Lens Academy's own calculation.
Goal 2: Developing five country-specific deep dive courses on middle powers and frontier AI governance (likely starting with India, South Korea, Singapore, Netherlands, Canada). These courses will examine the challenges and issues that each one of these states has to confront and navigate on frontier AI governance and engagement, alongside opportunities for further leverage. The premise here is that middle powers are not a monolith, and different nations face different sets of constraints or dilemmas (and wield different strategic levers) with regards to frontier AI. The goal with building these courses is to create greater awareness of these national level priorities - a prerequisite for any future engagement, policy wise or research wise, with these countries.
For goal 1 on Lens navigation, the work of facilitators/navigators like myself is tracked automatically in terms of hours contributed, and participants' feedback.
For goal 2, the immediate deliverable would be building the curricula for short format courses (akin to those delivered by Lens Academy and Bluedot). Participation and interest in the courses will be tracked as they're rolled out.
Navigation / facilitation of Lens courses (I have used Bluedot's facilitation fees as a baseline for this calculation): 5 courses x 3 iterations each x 25 hours (per course) x $50/hour = $18,750
Curriculum development for middle powers and AI courses: 5 courses x $2,000 per course = $10,000
Total: 28,750
The $2,000 per course (on middle powers) is an allocation toward obtaining expert contributions and enhancing the base curricula that I'm going to develop. The request does not cover the costs associated with the delivery and navigation of the middle powers courses. It also doesn't cover the time I contribute toward course development and delivery. I'd be happy to revise the funding request if you'd like to help cover my time.
On navigation: I have already helped navigate / facilitate several Lens Academy's courses. This is unpaid work. I have also delivered multiple iterations of Bluedot Impact's Frontier AI Governance and AGI Strategy courses. Lens Academy remains interested in my continued engagement and endorse this request.
On curriculum development: I've worked extensively on/in middle powers (see CV for examples). Lens Academy has also expressed interest in hosting the courses that I develop on their platform. I hope to recruit several area experts who can contribute toward building the country-specific courses. That's what the $2,000 allocation will go toward.
On Lens Academy navigation: If unfunded, I most likely won't be able to facilitate as many courses as I hope to. It is also possible (although unlikely) that Lens Academy may shift directions and shut down one or more of their course offerings. In such a scenario, I would likely pivot to facilitating other courses they have on offer.
On middle powers course development: There is always the possibility of weak overall demand for such curricula.
None. I've been doing this for free.