Strategy & Delivery Adviser - AI Security Institute

Governments have a critical role to play in ensuring advanced AI is safe, secure, and beneficial. The AI Security Institute is the first state-backed organisation dedicated to advancing this goal. We conduct research and build infrastructure to understand the capabilities of advanced AI, and we develop and test mitigations to risks. We partner in this work with frontier AI developers, research organisations, and governments around the world.

The Societal Impacts team studies how frontier AI systems can influence what people believe, decide, and do. As AI systems evolve, they may be able to influence human behaviour in ways that challenge individual autonomy and societal stability. The Societal Impacts team conducts world-leading research on these risks, running large human-AI studies and randomised controlled trials. We distribute our findings within the UK government and beyond.

Below are some recent examples of our research:

• AI systems out-persuade expert human persuaders
• People readily follow personal advice from AI, but it does not improve their wellbeing
• RealityTest: how people probe AI identity and whether models disclose it

As a Strategy & Delivery Adviser, you will support the research team operationally and help shape the strategic direction of research in line with AISI objectives.

Day-to-day, you will be responsible for the delivery of our research projects, working alongside researchers and internal partners in AISI and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).

Alongside delivery, you will help steer the teams direction. That includes the research direction: what we should prioritise as the AI landscape evolves; what the biggest societal risks are from AI, and our most important uncertainties about those risks. It also includes a general mission to make the research team a success: you will propose and develop improvements to make our research more efficient and impactful.

Our research team is an extremely talented group working in a fast-moving space, with new model releases every few weeks and enormous appetite across government and society for high-quality information on AIs societal impacts. This role is at the centre of that team, and a critical enabler of its success.

What you might work on

Strategy & Delivery roles in AISI are broad by design. We encourage individuals to actively shape their role and innovate on the teams modes and methods of working. Below is an illustrative, non-exhaustive list of potential responsibilities:

• Lead operational delivery for research projects from idea to output. This includes coordinating ethical and legal approvals, managing project deliverables and timelines, and establishing partnerships with third parties.
• Own high-priority special projects, like recruiting top Research Engineers to build the infrastructure our research depends on.
• Coordinate the team's objective-setting, pulling input from across the research team, working with the research lead, and contributing a view of what we should prioritise.
• Build impactful partnerships with researchers outside AISI, figuring out the operational mechanisms required (e.g. grants, contracts) and making them work.
• Bring our findings to stakeholders in AISI, the UK government, and AI labs. This includes drafting policy reports, delivering presentations, and briefing counterparts.

We are not looking for a particular CV. People do well in this role from a wide range of backgrounds and at a range of experience levels. What matters is a set of aptitudes:

• Agency: You take ownership and get things done without close direction, anticipating problems and resolving them before they escalate.
• Collaborativeness: You work well with people, gaining trust through reliability and building strong working relationships within the team, across AISI and wider government, and with external partners.
• Communication: You communicate effectively and adapt to your audience, whether expert or non-expert.
• Research interest: You can engage with academic research closely enough to coordinate it, following what a study is doing and why, without being a researcher yourself.
• Adaptability: You are comfortable with ambiguity and shifting priorities, and good at working out a sensible path forward when things are unclear.

The one thing that is essential: you want to reduce the risks that frontier AI poses to people and society, and the problems our team works on are the ones you want to help with.

This might not be the role for you if

• You want to conduct research yourself. You will have real influence over what the team works on and how, but you will not be doing research directly.
• You want a single, clearly-defined remit. You will be holding different priorities at once, and what is on your plate will change.
• You only want to work on strategy. A meaningful share of the job is the practical, hands-on work of making projects actually happen, and the role does not work without it.
• You need to be the expert in the room before you act. You will often be adding value in areas you are still learning.