Between June and September 2024, we ran the third iteration of the PIBBSS Summer Research Fellowship. Here are our reflections on how the program went and what we learned. Apply for the 2025 program here!

TLDR:

The 2024 fellowship demonstrated continued success in attracting and developing senior academic talent while refining our approach to interdisciplinary AI safety research. Key outcomes include:

Successfully facilitating the transition of multiple early-to-mid-career researchers into AI safety
Strong research outputs, including advances in mechanistic interpretability that one mentor described as "a 70th percentile paper in mech interp"
Increased seniority of fellows led to more sophisticated and complete research outputs
Going forward, we plan to strengthen research support infrastructure and better balance research direction diversity, which is the usual strength of our program.

About PIBBSS

PIBBSS (Principles of Intelligent Behavior in Biological and Social Systems) is a research initiative focused on leveraging insights and [...]

---

Outline:

(00:23) TLDR:

(01:10) About PIBBSS

(01:52) Fellowship Structure

(02:20) 2024 Program Changes

(03:25) Result Highlights

(06:24) Result Changes from 2023

(06:45) Fellow and Mentor Feedback

(07:28) Future Plans

(07:52) Expression of interest for Fellowship 2025

(08:26) Appendix: Fellowship Research Projects

(12:31) Thanks

---

First published:
December 20th, 2024

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/sHpJascyEuEibzFyg/retrospective-pibbss-fellowship-2024

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Retrospective: PIBBSS Fellowship 2024” by DusanDNesic, clem_acs, Lucas Teixeira 13:16 Share

LessWrong (30+ Karma)

Shownotes Transcript

“Retrospective: PIBBSS Fellowship 2024” by DusanDNesic, clem_acs, Lucas Teixeira