Technical Writer - Frontier AI Best Practice

Primary objective: turn AISI's technical expertise into authoritative best-practice documents that frontier AI developers find valuable and use, and into clear explanations of why those practices matter.

You'll work closely with AISI researchers and the standards team on two kinds of writing. 

Example responsibilities:

• Best-practice documents (about 50%)

  • Work with researchers to decide what form each piece of best practice should take, and how it should be structured.
  • Own delivery of best-practice documents, co-drafting by managing researchers’ technical input and editing to ensure each practice is coherent, specific, testable and technically accurate.
  • Set out the technical rationale for each practice, drawing on research findings, threat models and evaluation results, so the case for it is evidence-based and credible to a diverse set of expert readers. 
  • Develop a consistent style, templates and terminology for AISI best practice documents, and run review rounds with internal and external experts.

• Explainers (about 50%)

  • Write public explainers and technical blog posts setting out the reasoning behind AISI's best practice: why it matters, and what it means for developers, policymakers and the public. For example, the series that follow our agenda, Towards technical best practice for frontier AI development.
  • Manage multi-stakeholder drafting processes, engaging with feedback from industry, wider government and expert third parties.
  • Adapt material for different audiences, from technical researchers to non-technical policy readers, working with AISI's communications team.

Reporting and growth:

You'll report to the Head of Technical Standards and Best Practice. This role by default has no line management responsibilities thought responsibility will scale as the team grows. You'll learn from AISI's researchers across a wide range of frontier AI safety topics, and help shape a new team as it grows.

What we are looking for

We're flexible on the exact profile and expect successful candidates will meet many, but not necessarily all, of the criteria below. This role is most likely to fall at Level 4, but we are open to exceptional candidates at other levels.

Essential:

We're looking for someone who can:

• Understand nuanced technical AI safety work well enough to explain its claims and limitations accurately,

• Write precise, structured documents that set out what organisations should do and why,

• Explain the same technical topics clearly and engagingly to non-technical readers

For example, you might have:

• Written or co-written AI research papers, such as preprints on arXiv.

• Written in-depth technical communication on AI working directly with researchers, such as AI company blog posts or technical reports.

• Written technical guidance, standards or documentation in a complex field.

• Written for public or policy audiences on technical topics.

You don't need all of these. For a sense of the level and style we're looking for, see the work our research teams publish on the AISI blog by our research teams.

Desirable:

• Familiarity with one or more of our priority areas: monitorability, safety cases and risk reports, or AI research automation. 
• Extensive experience communicating AI security concepts for policy audiences. 
• Experience running the writing of a multi-author document: gathering input from several experts, resolving conflicting feedback and getting it to publication. 
• Familiarity with how frontier AI developers, evaluators or standards bodies work, for example from working at or alongside them. 

Example backgrounds:

• An AI safety researcher who has published several papers and especially enjoys the writing and framing side of research. 
• A technical writer or science communicator with a machine learning degree or AI background, who has co-written papers or reports on AI research. 
• A research engineer or analyst at an AI safety organisation who has led writing on published frameworks or reports. 

Core requirements

• You should be able to spend at least 4 days per week working with us.
• No security clearance is needed to apply. Eligibility for Security Check (SC) clearance is preferred, but not essential. More detail on clearance eligibility can be found on the UK Government website: National security vetting: clearance levels - GOV.UK.
  

Interview process

Candidates should expect to go through some or all of the following stages once an application has been submitted:  

• Initial interview  
• Technical take home test 
• Second interview and review of take home test 
• Third interview 
• Final interview with members of the senior team