External Affairs Director

Duties and Responsibilities

The Center for AI Policy is looking for an External Affairs Director with extensive experience in political strategy, coalition building, and/or advocacy. Your primary job duties would be:

• Develop a detailed understanding of the relevant positions of non-governmental interest groups and stakeholders who might support legislation about AI safety, including top AI labs, AI ethicists, the open source movement, academia, industry, unions, other AI safety advocates, and IP rights holders (producers, artists, actors, authors, etc.)
• Attend and host networking events and conferences to cultivate personal relationships with these stakeholders
• Tailor and edit our written materials to appeal to the needs and values of specific interest groups, and pitch those interest groups on CAIP’s policy priorities
• Work to build and support a broad coalition that supports or is at least willing to accept AI safety legislation
• Coordinate with the rest of our team (including our government relations directors) to mobilize the right interest groups at the right time to keep CAIP-supported bills moving through Congress as quickly as possible.

Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate will have:

• At least 5 years of professional experience after graduation, including at least 2 years working in United States national politics
• A sincere desire to reduce the catastrophic risks posed by advanced AI
• A robust network of political contacts, including some contacts relevant to AI policy
• Enough technical literacy to explain how the science behind AI drives AI policy – we have computer scientists on the team to handle the details, but we want someone who can explain, e.g., why neural networks are a black box and why that matters for policy.
• The flexibility to work with a small and growing new team on a rapidly evolving issue

Logistics

• Hybrid Office Schedule: We ask team members to come in person to our downtown DC office for six hours each on Mondays and Thursdays, and we try to schedule most of our internal team meetings on those days. We also expect that you’ll have many in-person meetings on Capitol Hill. If you don’t have a scheduled meeting, you are welcome to work from wherever you like.
• Immediate Availability Preferred: We are looking for candidates who can start work as soon as possible, so it is unlikely that we would be able to sponsor a visa.

Compensation & Benefits: The annual salary range for this role is $100,000 - $140,000, depending on experience. We also provide basic health insurance, a $2,500/year stipend for conferences, 22 days paid time off, and a Capital BikeShare membership.