Safe AI Forum
International coordination to reduce frontier AI risks, with a focus on China and the West.
Stream overview
There are several clusters of work that scholars could work with us on.
- US-China interstate coordination on frontier AI safety. Projects in this vein could include (a) researching and developing specific proposals for international agreements that could reduce frontier risks, (b) research that advances understanding of how advanced AI and AGI will affect geopolitics, (c) research that increases the likelihood of successful coordination (e.g., verification of AI agreements)
- Collaborative frontier AI safety and governance research projects with international experts. These include topics such as frontier AI regulation and loss of control threat modelling. This would likely involve joining an ongoing project and contributing to it rather than starting an independent project.
- Horizon scanning and identifying other possible topics for coordination between China and the West.
Mentors
Fynn Heide is Executive Director of the Safe AI Forum. Previously, Heide researched AI policy in China as a research scholar at the Centre for the Governance of AI.
Isabella is a Senior Researcher at the Safe AI Forum, where she works on U.S.–China coordination on frontier AI safety. Her research focuses on technical governance, particularly building consensus and advancing dialogue on loss-of-control and extreme-misuse risks, with recent work spanning technical misuse safeguards, AI control playbook, and misalignment incidents. She holds an MA in Computational Social Science from the University of Chicago and a BS in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from University College London.
Saad Siddiqui is a senior researcher at Safe AI Forum, where his research examines possible agreement between leading AI powers. He previously worked as a management consultant at Bain and Company in Singapore.
Mentorship style
1 hour weekly meetings by default for high-level guidance. We are active on Slack and typically respond within a day for quick questions.
Fellows we are looking for
Good understanding of international AI governance developments that are relevant to frontier AI safety (e.g., the Summit series, AISI network)
Good understanding of Chinese AI governance and safety (key players, key trends and institutional structures)
Good understanding of key frontier risk domains (CBRN, cyber, loss of control)
Some understanding of broader US-China relations and how they frame US-China relations on AI/AGI specifically
Scholars will by default collaborate with someone from the Safe AI Forum, though the exact person will vary based on the project they pick. They are also welcome to work with other collaborators (we are happy to suggest names or have scholars find their own collaborators)
Project selection
We will provide a shortlist of projects that we are keen for the scholar to work on in Week 1. We'll ask scholars to scope these in the 1st week and make a determination about which project to focus on in Week 2.
The Winter 2027 cohort offers a wide range of research streams led by experts across AI alignment, interpretability, governance, and safety. Each stream provides its own research agenda, methodology, and mentorship focus.
