“Help us launch AI safety university groups by referring potential founders” by thomasrodskog, Jason Chin
Podcast: LessWrong (30+ Karma)Published On: Fri Jul 17 2026
Description: TL;DR University groups are among the most reliable producers of AI safety talent, yet dozens of top schools that could sustain a group don't have one. We're launching the AI Safety Seeding Initiative (aisafetyseeding.org) in partnership with Kairos to identify latent founders at these schools, support them in the group's earliest stages, and prepare them to apply to Pathfinder and launch this fall. You can help us find potential founders. If you know a student at a strong university without an AIS group (see this list[1]), refer us to them. There aren’t enough AI safety university groups University groups are one of the most common routes into AI safety work: a 2023 survey of people working on catastrophic risks found university group involvement was the single most common career influence. Dedicated field-building organizations like Kairos exist largely to support these groups, and the ceiling for their success is high: groups like MAIA, AISST, and BASIS have grown from paper-reading groups into some of the field's strongest talent pipelines[2]. It is not uncommon for top talent to go from “vaguely interested student” to full-time hire in 6-12 months. Kairos's Pathfinder fellowship does a great job of [...] ---Outline:(00:13) TL;DR(00:51) There aren't enough AI safety university groups(02:58) Our solution: the AI Safety Seeding Initiative(03:27) The team(04:00) Here's our playbook:(05:18) How you can help The original text contained 7 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: July 16th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/a9YtcE3Aogphf8ukH/help-us-launch-ai-safety-university-groups-by-referring --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
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