Mark Aiken

Karma: 9

Mark Aiken 11 Jun 2026 20:49 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Ben_West🔸’s comment on: Experience of a ‘generalist’ transitioning into AI safety in 2026
1. Title the role “Senior [whatever].” I think this is ok, but in many fields “senior” is a synonym for “old”, so this title causes talented young people to not apply (and untalented old people to apply).
  I think ‘specialist’ works as a title in this situation, without invoking issues of age—eg Finance specialist, Comms specialist etc.
For me TOR are important, and I wonder sometimes if enough time is spent by hiring organisations (including commercial organisations) in defining what they want out of roles. I see Chief of Staff roles in some organisations that are quite strategic, and in other organisations that are essentially an admin assistant. I appreciate defining responsibilities and tasks is especially tricky in startups, where the roles are harder to define, and you might want a true generalist who can do a bit of everything.
If an organisation advertises for a HR manager, and talks about how they are scaling up and rapidly recruiting, I might apply—I’ve done end to end recruitment roles, performance management, HR policy etc. If the organisation advertises for a ‘HR specialist’, and talks about recruitment, setting comp, HR compliance across multiple jurisdictions, I’ve got a better idea what they’re looking for and I’m going to screen myself out by not applying because I dont have all that expertise.
I dont think I’m an ‘untalented old person’ in the first scenario—the organisational asked for something that I’ve done before, so I apply based on the information that was available. But if the organisation asks for A but really intends B, then everyones’ time has been wasted.
5. Ask for referrals from people who I know well enough that I can effectively say “highly skilled generalist” and they will apply that criterion in a way that I would endorse. This is good but means I don’t hire from outside my circle.
If everyone hires from within their existing circles then the community doesnt grow—it’s just musical chairs with the same people swapping between same organisations. If the thesis is that the community needs to grow to be able to (1) effectively respond to urgent AI safety challenges and (2) effectively absorb and use anticipated increased levels of funding, then to my mind looking at recruitment practices is an important part of the solution.

Mark Aiken 10 Jun 2026 18:43 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Emily Marais’s comment on: Experience of a ‘generalist’ transitioning into AI safety in 2026
I think alignment -is- the right word.
And I think it’s not necessarily about people’s ability to do work, but people’s perceived commitment to ‘the cause’ and their perceived ‘moral fit’ with the organisation.
I think there’s a higher importance placed on this by some organisations, and for some roles. But it seems that some degree of ‘alignment’ is required to be recruited to almost all roles in the EA eco-system.
I’m not taking a stance on whether this is good or bad—people can rightly have opinions both ways on this I think. Just making an observation that it’s a factor.
I’m also going to refer to this post that is based on ‘context’ being a missing criteria for external candidates, but I think this concept includes alignment.

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/b82SLXwEHRCs3TFJA/why-experienced-professionals-fail-to-land-high-impact-roles

Mark Aiken 10 Jun 2026 9:36 UTC
5 points
5 ∶ 0
on: Experience of a ‘generalist’ transitioning into AI safety in 2026
Thanks for sharing your experience Emily! I think your experience is consistent with many of the colleagues I’ve been speaking with as I go through bluedot courses, CEA bootcamps etc. People are interested in learning more about AI safety, they want to gain context, but the pathways for generalists are not so clear or well developed. I’ve spoken to mid-career and senior level people who would love to contribute, but its hard for them to find entry points after the initial courses and fellowships. I expect that EA is missing out on some interested and committed people, who cant figure out how to navigate networks to find opportunities (or who give up after a year or two of trying).
I appreciate that EA and AI safety recruiting is done in a high-trust context, and there’s a premium placed on alignment and evidence like public writing. I also think that working or volunteering with EA / AI safety organisations is probably the fastest way for people to advance their understanding, once they’ve reached some baseline level.
Similar to the ‘freelancers for good’ idea, I wonder if there’s a way for recruiting organisations to ‘projectise’ some of their generalist work a bit more, as an opportunity for recruiting organisations to get some work done, but with a lower level of commitment required in case the recruit isnt a good fit. For example, recruit a short term comms person to develop a communications strategy and brand assets, recruit a short-term HR person to streamline recruitment processes and create banks of exam scenarios, recruit a short-term operations person to look at how systems can be streamlined, bring in a short-term legal person to review templates for legal agreements etc etc.
These are just examples, and different organisations will have different needs. But it seems to me that by opening up these kinds of short-term / lower-commitment roles for external candidates, it would help grow the EA / AI safety field, while helping interested people build their EA understanding. At the end of a short-term assignment, the recruiting organisation ideally has some useful product, the candidate has a new work product they can talk about, and both the organisation and the candidate would both have a clearer sense of whether the ‘fit’ was right for them.

Mark Aiken 20 May 2026 20:18 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Sophie Kim’s comment on: AI safety is extremely bottlenecked on grantmakers
Hey Sophie,
I have quite a lot (decades) of grant making and grant administration experience.
Happy to brainstorm with you if you’re interested in pulling together an introductory level course etc. Send me a DM :)

Mark Aiken 9 May 2026 16:20 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: huw’s comment on: A brief update on EA Funds, and a recruitment announcement: Head of the EA Infrastructure Fund
Adding to this—people with mental illnesses in developing countries are often stigmatised and shunned by their families, and at worst imprisoned. They are imprisoned due to (1) public order offences (ie being disruptive in public) and (2) a lack of other facilities to accommodate them long term (ie hospital facilities or mental health programmes).
There is a lot that could be done relatively cheaply if this was taken up as a priority.

Mark Aiken 9 May 2026 11:42 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: David_Moss’s comment on: Some surprising hiring practices I follow (as a hiring manager and grantmaker in EA)
I fully agree.
My understanding of most structured interview formats is that follow up or clarifying questions are still expected and encouraged. There’s limited value in robotically sticking to a list of identical questions, and missing out on the opportunity to get additional information with a follow-up question.
I find the best interviews feel like a structured conversation. There’s interaction between the panel and the candidate, because that’s how we really interact when we meet together. There are efforts made to help the candidate feel relaxed and comfortable, and to value the experiences that they share with the panel. I cover the same questions in the same order with the candidate, but we might spend longer on some questions than others, depending on the background and strengths / weakness of the candidate.

Mark Aiken 8 May 2026 12:26 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Agustín Covarrubias 🔸’s comment on: AI Safety’s Biggest Talent Gap Isn’t Researchers. It’s Generalists.
|> If you’re a program manager in a small org, you’re basically making highly strategic judgment calls on a weekly basis, and when people don’t have strong mental models around AI safety, they tend to make the wrong ones. I think at present the majority of demand for soft ops roles in the ecosystem looks like this: they’re roles that require one to make frequent judgment calls that benefit highly from field-specific context and a solid internalization of our priorities.
Firstly, I agree that in smaller organisations people do a bit of many things, and having some technical background is helpful.
The way you describe the programme manager role sounds to me like a research manager type position. These positions are most likely to need a technical background. However, there could equally be programme manager roles which dont require technical expertise.
For example, if I’m managing the development of a training course, I hire a subject matter expert to develop the content. I’m managing timelines, I’m managing staffing, I’m managing budgets, I’m managing quality—but I dont need subject matter expertise to do this management role.
Even if I have some subject matter expertise, this expertise might not be fully transferable—I can have deep knowledge about using Excel, but if I’m overseeing training course development on how to design a more efficient electric car battery, my Excel subject matter expertise might be mostly irrelevant.
Now you could hire a subject matter expert to be this programme manager to oversee the development of these training courses. But they might not have the background or skills for this role, because—they are a subject matter expert, not a programme management expert.
More broadly—I dont want my research experts to following up on visas, or drafting a press release, or doing graphic design for an event invitation, or trying to work out which politician would give them a sympathetic hearing, or how much cash flow we need for the next month. There are specialists who have this expertise already, and it seems more efficient to work with these specialists where it makes sense, instead of overweighting on prior AI safety technical expertise.
> There are important exceptions to this, especially at bigger orgs, where soft ops roles can be more specialized and therefore there’s less of a need for a high degree of context and deep mission-alignment (for example, I suspect many soft ops roles at Coefficient Giving are like this).
I agree, I think that larger organisations have a greater capacity to carry specialised non-technical expertise. But I think this specialist expertise could also be available to smaller organisations, perhaps on a fractional basis? If the organisations saw it as being useful. And perhaps if there was a better way of matching expertise to smaller organisations?
I also wonder if there is a potential chicken and egg argument there - ie, that organisations that are willing to accept specialist support (perhaps starting with finance, HR, operations?) are more likely to be stable and successful and grow into a larger organisation? Or conversely, if you have a sole founder and rely on technical researchers for everything, that this kind of structure can place limits on the growth and sustainability of the organisation.

Mark Aiken 8 May 2026 11:58 UTC
3 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: Karen Maria Alston’s comment on: AI Safety’s Biggest Talent Gap Isn’t Researchers. It’s Generalists.
Hi Karen,
I made an account here so I can post this comment.
I wanted to thank you for raising these issues. Similar to you, I’m a senior professional. I’m part of Bluedot and CEA cohorts which also include other senior professionals (20-30 years experience). These professionals (and myself) have already had impactful careers, and are looking to pivot into new impactful roles where our skills and experience can be applied.
With my personal background, it would be much easier (and probably better financially) for me to pivot into corporate AI Governance rather than AI safety. I’d prefer not to do this since it seems less impactful.
I also find the distinction in these discussions between technical / researcher roles and ‘generalist’ (ie non-technical) roles to be an interesting framing. It seems to me that there are other ways of assessing mission alignment, and there is a risk of overweighting on technical expertise, as HannahGB questions below.
To give a concrete (but invented) example:
Scenario 1: Lets imagine that we have an AI safety organisation doing wonderful research. The researchers take their results, and present at a technical conference. Attendees are very impressed, and this inspires other researchers to continue to develop the research pathway.
Scenario 2: Lets imagine the same research at a different AI safety organisation. The researcher briefs the executive leadership of the organisation on their results. The organisation works with their policy lead to tease out the implications of the research results. The policy and communications leads work together to define an advocacy position and their proposals, supported by a strong briefing deck with talking points that are understandable by a semi-technical government audience. A lawyer helps prepare zero draft text for inclusion in regulation. The policy lead links the organisation with regulators from their network, to present the research and advocate for improved governance. The Comms lead arranges publicity and advocacy for the discussion through their comms networks. And the researcher still gets to present the research at a technical conference.
It seems to me like there’s a lot of Scenario 1 work happening in the field. And then some separate organisations working on AI governance and oversight from a legislative and policy perspective. My question is whether there is also opportunity for more of the Scenario 2 type approach?