We’re not currently actively hiring, but we are on the lookout for exceptional people who can add to our team. So if you are interested in working with us, please fill out this form.

We will review submissions periodically, but **by default we will not get back to you.** We might reach out if you seem like an unusually good fit, or if we open a hiring round for a relevant role.

# About Forethought

Forethought is a research nonprofit focused on how to prepare for rapid AI-driven technological change. We try to understand both the challenges and opportunities this change will bring, from extreme concentration of power and new weapons of mass destruction to economic abundance and enhanced collective decision-making. We ask: how can we reach as good an outcome as possible? And what can we do, now, to prepare?

We are building a small, focused team to tackle the most important questions we can find and share our best guesses, unrestricted by the current Overton window. We share our results publicly, focused on reaching AI think tanks, companies, and policy-makers who are focused on transformative AI.

## Research priorities

We are currently pursuing the following perspectives:

* **Governing AI-driven explosive technological progress:** If AI drives explosive technological change there will be an enormous number of challenges we have to face, including potentially: misalignment risk, how to govern the development of many new weapons of mass destruction; what rights to give digital beings; how to govern an automated military; how to avoid dictatorship or authoritarianism; etc.

* **Achieving a near-best future:** Most explicitly longtermist work to date has been focused on avoiding existential catastrophe, but achieving a near-best future might be even more important. Research avenues here include some questions about moral philosophy, trying to map out how we could help good reflective processes steer the future, and some topics in space governance.

We tend to think that many non-alignment areas of work (e.g. avoiding AI-enabled dictatorship) are particularly neglected.

However, we are not confident that these are the best frames for this work, and we are keen for other people to develop and pursue their own agendas (including in alignment, S-risk, digital minds, etc).

## Culture

We aim to have a culture that is:

* **Kind but spicy**  
  * We are supportive and friendly.  
  * But in research discussions, we try to lean into controversy and disagreement, in order to make intellectual progress.  
* **Barbell focused**  
  * On most days, we encourage you to clear your calendar, get your head down and focus. We want to clear distractions out of your way.  
  * But on Tuesdays zoom out, throw ideas around, hang around whiteboards.  
* **Hypothesis driven:**  
  * Have a take, even when everything is super uncertain.   
  * Remember that it’s just a hypothesis, and change your mind quickly.  
  * Be concrete, and think about specific things we want to happen in the world  
* **Focused on what’s important:**   
  * Seek to discern and work on the *very most* important questions, rather than the many very important questions.  
  * Take time to explore ideas, and prioritize especially hard at the point where you’re thinking about which ideas to write up in a polished way.  
  * Be open to “weird” ideas, and don’t get too drawn into what’s socially acceptable / cool / in the news.

# Potential roles

Here are some roles we might hire for in the future:

* Researchers (senior, junior, RAs, visiting fellows)

* Roles to help turn ideas into action

  * Via pitching people to set up new orgs (which we’d support with advice and networks)

  * Via translating ideas into policy proposals, and socializing those proposals in policy circles

  * Via community-building (e.g. fellowships) focused on these topics

* Engineers to build data pipelines / scaffolding etc to automate the types of macrostrategy research we’re doing.

But please feel free to apply if you don’t neatly fit into any of these categories.

Expression of interest

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We are a small, collaborative research team, working on the questions that seem most important, even when they seem “weird” to others. We try to clearly communicate our best guesses, even when our answers are incomplete. 

Our team is primarily based in Oxford, UK, but we're open to remote applicants.

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We're not currently actively recruiting for any roles, but if you'd like to join our team, you're very welcome to submit an Expression of Interest below. We'll get back to you if you seem like an unusually good fit, and will keep your application on record for if we're interested in recruiting for a relevant role in future.

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