This summer, I’m supervising some research fellows through Cambridge's ERA AI Fellowship. The program started last week, and I’ve had conversations with about 6 fellows about their research projects & summer goals.

In this post, I’ll highlight a few pieces of advice I’ve found myself regularly giving to research fellows. This post reflects my own opinions and does not necessarily reflect the views of others at ERA.

Prioritize projects that have a clear target audience

Problem: One of the most common reasons why research products fail to add value is that they do not have a target audience. I think it can be easy to find a topic that is interesting/important, spend several months working on it, produce a 20-50 page paper, and then realize that you have no particular stakeholder(s) who find the work action-relevant.

Advice: Try to brainstorm what specific individuals you would want to [...]

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Outline:

(00:32) Prioritize projects that have a clear target audience

(02:38) Be specific about your end products

(05:26) Take advantage of your network (and others’ networks)

(08:00) Miscellaneous

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First published:
July 8th, 2024

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ABSEaJvtap4v4nzcM/advice-to-junior-ai-governance-researchers

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Advice to junior AI governance researchers” by Akash

LessWrong (30+ Karma)