CEEALAR: 2024 Update

Attendees at our recent PauseAI Unconference

TL;DR: 🥳

Last November we had only 4 months of runway remaining–today we have ~1.5 years.

I’m reminded of the saying ‘it takes a village to raise a child’, and I would be writing a very different update if not for the village that came together to support us since our fundraising appeal last winter.

We received several months of runway as a result of individual donations from alumni and supporters, which gave us the time to approach new funders, as well as encouragement to persevere.

Others volunteered their time and energy to support us. Guests at the hotel helped with day-to-day tasks so that we could focus on fundraising, and we received priceless advice from more experienced EAs on how to improve our offering and make the value of our project more apparent to funders.

As a result of all the above, with just over a month of runway remaining, we received an emergency grant from AISTOF^[1] that ensured our continued operation until the end of the year.

And now we’ve been granted an additional full year of funding from EAIF. 🤯 🎤 🫳

MANY thank-yous are due:

To those who donated
To those who offered their time and advice
To those who advocated for us
To colleagues, past and present
To ML4G, Stampy and PauseAI for choosing us as your venue despite our uncertain future
To Wytham Abbey, for their generous donation of equipment
To the grant investigators who gave us a chance to explain what this strange little hotel in Blackpool is doing and why it’s worth supporting
Last but not least—to our grantees and alumni, for being so committed to having a positive impact on the world, and giving us the chance to play a role in your journey.

The Future of CEEALAR!

AI Winter is Coming to CEEALAR

CEEALAR has been hosting grantees working on AI Safety since it opened in 2018, and this winter we’re going all in—we’re going to be the AI Winter we want to see in the world.

From September until the end of the year we’re going to direct our outreach and programming toward AI Safety.^[2]

Keep an eye out for a future update where we’ll go more into the details of what we have planned—which isn’t much right now, so if you’ve got ideas and would like to collaborate with us on AI Winter, get in touch!

If you’d like a reminder, or are interested in participating or collaborating in some fashion—please fill out this tiny form (<2 minutes).

If you don’t need any more convincing, it’s not too early to apply.

Workshops and Bootcamps and Hackathons, Oh My!

As Wytham Abbey have closed their doors, it’s a good job there’s still a swanky EA venue, right guys? If you’re running an event for up to 20*^[3] people, we can provide fully catered accommodation, venue space and operations support.

As part of CEEALAR, our venue is nonprofit and operates on a ‘pay what you can’ basis–this way we can enable high impact events that might be prevented due to financial constraints.

Please contact us if this sounds like you!

Renovations

We’re never more proud of our space than when our guests say they feel at home here, and we’re always on the lookout for ways to improve our offering so they never want to leave 🙂

On this note, our old home gym^[4] was getting a bit long in the tooth, and we’re in the process of totally refitting the space. There is currently less gym now than before but by the time you arrive there will be much more, and better!

Upcoming Opportunities

We’ve yet to finalize the details, but we expect to have open positions in the future:

A salaried senior leadership position, an unpaid trustee position, and a rolling volunteer ‘internship’ in Operations for those looking to upskill and get some hands on experience.

Apply to stay at CEEALAR

As a Grantee

Our grantees come from a wide range of backgrounds, and most are at the early stages of their impact journeys – using their time at CEEALAR to upskill, make connections, look for impactful opportunities, or work on projects that they might not otherwise have the chance to pursue.

If you are worried about not having enough experience or qualifications, you might be an ideal CEEALAR Grantee—applicants with high potential and a large counterfactual impact of staying at CEEALAR are the primary beneficiaries that we aim to support.

As our funding is now secure through 2025, you’re welcome to apply in advance for any dates up to the end of 2025.

If in doubt, apply!

Taking a break from saving the world to win a local competition at Blackpool Library.

As a Patron

While it’s always been possible for people to stay at CEEALAR as a paying guest (rather than as a grantee), we’ve recently updated our application process to make this more visible.

Staying at CEEALAR as a Patron is similar to a normal hotel—your application isn’t evaluated as a grant, you’re not required to be working in relevant cause areas, or to participate in our impact measurement processes.

Unlike a normal hotel, you also get as much vegan food as you can eat, multiple coworking spaces and breakout areas, a home gym^[5], and the best^[6] EA community this side of the singularity to share it all with.

Book to stay as a patron here.

Volunteer

It feels cheeky to ask for more support after having received so much recently, but given the impact volunteers have had on CEEALAR, it would be more foolish to leave such offers of support on the table.

If you’d like to play a part in CEEALAR’s future, here’s are some examples of things we could use help with:

Contributing to our AI Winter event
- Ideas, workshops, hackathons, outreach etc
Mentoring grantees, e.g. ARENA tutors coaching people who are upskilling in AI Safety
Offering zoom (or in person) talks / workshops
Impact measurement. Are you experienced with this, and want to help us improve through measuring what matters most?

If you can help with any of these (or something else not on this list!) please get in touch: contact@ceealar.org

Our Commitments

To conclude, we’d like to share our goals and commitments for 2024 H2 & 2025.

Improve and increase our outreach efforts

With the aim of receiving 5-12 applications^[7] per month, by updating our website, enhancing our online presence, as well as active outreach and connecting with EA university societies and careers services across the UK, and around the world.

Improve our impact measurement process

To better capture CEEALAR’s performance against its objectives, publish an annual impact report to be used as a basis for improvement, and as supporting material for funding applications.

Continue to iterate and improve upon day-to-day life at CEEALAR

With the aim of increasing productivity and improving the overall experience of our guests. Renovating our home gym and courtyard are our main priorities for 2024 H2.

Increase opportunities available to grantees and alumni

For upskilling, networking and participating in the community, by facilitating more connections and communication within our alumni network. We’ll begin sending a short quarterly newsletter to our alumni providing information on volunteering opportunities within EA, and a summary of the cause areas and projects of recent grantees so that alumni can connect with people and projects they may be interested in.

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AI Safety Tactical Opportunities Fund
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Though we’ll still be considering applicants from other cause areas.
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There are also many nearby hotels if you need additional accommodation
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That is to say, ‘room with weights and such in it’
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Soon
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As voted by an entirely impartial straw poll of guests present while writing this post
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From quality candidates, i.e. not ChatGPT spam.