Researcher / Senior Researcher

Summary

Epoch AI is a research institute that investigates trends in machine learning and the economic consequences of AI, with a mission to develop a comprehensive, publicly accessible knowledge base on AI. Researchers and senior researchers will study AI capabilities and trajectories by analyzing trends, designing experiments and benchmarks, forecasting impacts, and publishing findings to inform policymakers, industry leaders, and society.

Responsibilities

• Data center researchers will produce data insights and reports about frontier AI data centers, and improve the methodology behind the AI Data Centers explorer. Potential research topics include the data center buildout across countries, constraints to the buildout, and estimating the kind of chips inside different data centers. Depending on fit, the role may include managing contractors who analyze individual data centers
• Supply chain researchers will investigate the supply chain for compute and other AI inputs. From components to owners, where are all the chips in the world, who is using them and how are they being paid for? What is the trajectory for the future? Outputs include data explorers, data insights, and reports
• Polling and experiments researchers will design and analyze polls, RCTs, and other behavioral data on AI usage. Their work will investigate the impacts of AI, uplift, and the strategic landscape of AI
• Special projects researchers will run self-contained exploratory investigations into new questions for Epoch, publishing the results as reports or newsletter posts. The most promising directions may later be developed by other teams into lasting products
• Researchers for Gradient Updates will focus on analyzing big-picture questions about AI progress and its societal impacts, e.g. understanding the factors that impact the chances of rapid recursive self-improvement, what compute constraints mean for US-China AI competition, and the future of AI benchmarks. They will then write up their findings and share them broadly via Epoch's newsletter, to help inform discourse and key decision-making about the future of AI
• Benchmarking researchers will create, run, and analyze benchmarks that measure important AI capabilities. Our benchmarks focus on areas of economic import as well as capabilities pertaining to highly impactful dynamics, like recursive self-improvement. Areas where we are excited to build benchmarking include: AI R&D, general mathematical and scientific discovery, long horizon strategic reasoning, cybersecurity, computer use, and multimodal/spatial reasoning
• Benchmark reviewers will work on a new project to review and certify benchmarks. This will involve researching individual benchmark quality and public writeups of the results. The role may also expand to include writing guides for benchmark development, and there is flexibility to spend some time on direct benchmark development
• ECI and capability trends researchers will work on maintaining, improving, and extending the ECI and other projects to better understand model capabilities and trends. Examples of potential projects include extending our analysis of trend breaks, incorporating inference compute into scaling laws, or running experiments on AI models

Skills

• - **Curiosity and learning speed**. You rapidly absorb new information across diverse domains and stay at the forefront of a fast-moving field. You seek out new research and enjoy diving into unfamiliar topics
• - **Rigorous reasoning under uncertainty.** You make quantitative estimates with limited information and reason clearly about uncertainty
• - **Familiarity with AI trends**
• - Excellent written and verbal **communication skills**
• Please submit all of your application materials in **English** and note that we require professional level English proficiency
• Outstanding candidates might have **prior experience in research areas** similar to Epoch's field; experience in at least one part of the AI development pipeline (hardware, datacenters, benchmarks, etc.); or relevant experience in related organizations
• While we welcome applicants from all time zones, we prefer candidates who can overlap with UTC–8 (Pacific Time) and UTC (Greenwich Mean Time), as most of our staff work in this range of time zones
• We also prefer candidates who can travel: we hold three retreats per year

Qualifications

Must Haves

• - **Curiosity and learning speed**. You rapidly absorb new information across diverse domains and stay at the forefront of a fast-moving field. You seek out new research and enjoy diving into unfamiliar topics
• - **Rigorous reasoning under uncertainty.** You make quantitative estimates with limited information and reason clearly about uncertainty
• - **Familiarity with AI trends**
• - Excellent written and verbal **communication skills**
• Please submit all of your application materials in **English** and note that we require professional level English proficiency

Nice to Haves

• Outstanding candidates might have **prior experience in research areas** similar to Epoch's field; experience in at least one part of the AI development pipeline (hardware, datacenters, benchmarks, etc.); or relevant experience in related organizations
• While we welcome applicants from all time zones, we prefer candidates who can overlap with UTC–8 (Pacific Time) and UTC (Greenwich Mean Time), as most of our staff work in this range of time zones
• We also prefer candidates who can travel: we hold three retreats per year

Benefits

• Fully remote environment, including flexible work hours and schedules for most roles; paid access to local coworking space as desired.
• Competitive global benefits program, including a comprehensive health insurance program—including supplemental benefits specific to a local country, as available and mandated by local law—and life insurance and a pension plan, if applicable in your country.
• Generous paid time off (PTO), including no specific annual limit, with 30 days PTO per year protected, unlimited personal and sick leave, and 4 months paid parental leave for permanent staff with at least 12 months of tenure (prorated parental leave if less than 12 months).
• A flexible and generous expense policy for you to spend on equipment and a large range of productivity tools or learning/development opportunities you might find valuable, subject to regulations and manager approval.
• Paid work trips, including 3 staff retreats per year and relevant conferences.
• Access to our very well-equipped offices in Berkeley, California, including paid meals, snacks, gym, and more.