Summer Research Fellowship in Law & AI, 2023 by the Legal Priorities Project (Stipend of $10k): Apply by July 6

29 Jun 2023

Categories: Fellowships

About The Legal Priorities Project

The Legal Priorities Project is an independent, global research and field-building project founded by researchers at Harvard University. We conduct strategic legal research that mitigates existential risk and promotes the flourishing of future generations, and we build a field that shares these priorities.

Significant ongoing developments in the world, including rapid advances towards transformative AI, have led us to increase our focus on risks from artificial intelligence.

About the Fellowship

At the Summer Research Fellowship, you will take the lead on a research project, with mentorship and support from other LPP researchers.

They will support you in deciding what project and output will be most valuable for you to work towards, for example, publishing a report, journal/law review article, or blog post.

They also expect fellows to attend regular meetings, give occasional presentations on their research, and provide feedback on other research pieces.

Fellows will have the opportunity to select a research topic from a list prepared by LPP. Potential research topics for the summer may include:

Tort law liability, including strict liability for abnormally dangerous activities, for activities related to the development and dissemination of transformative AI.
Product liability law as a way to address harms from transformative AI.
The role of litigation in mitigating risks from transformative AI.
Potential obstacles for AI regulation are presented by the major questions doctrine.
First Amendment issues related to AI regulation.
The design of a new international organization, similar to the IAEA or CERN, for the international governance of AI.
The legal authorities of agencies in the United States government to address risks from transformative AI.
The influence of different jurisdictions on the development and dissemination of transformative AI.
Developing a syllabus for a course on law and transformative AI.

This list of topics is non-exhaustive and is presented to give an overview of the types of research we are interested in. Fellows will further define the research question at the beginning of the fellowship.

In exceptional cases, they are open to research project proposals relevant to existential risk in one of their other focus areas.

Selection Criteria

They are looking for graduate law students (JD or LLM), PhD candidates, and postdocs working in law. Students entering the final year of a 5-year undergraduate law degree are also welcome to apply.
They strongly encourage you to apply if you have an interest in their work and are considering using your career to study or mitigate existential risks, particularly those from transformative AI.
Candidates will be expected to apply their research capabilities and legal knowledge to AI governance, but are not required to have previous experience or expertise in AI.
In addition to a willingness to engage with existential risks from AI, the ideal candidate will have the following strengths:
- Ability to carry out self-directed research with limited supervision.
- Excellent written communication skills.
- Excellent problem-solving and critical-thinking skills.

Stipend

You will receive a stipend of $10,000 for the entire fellowship.

Application Process

First stage

Please complete the application form linked below.

The form asks you to:

Submit your CV
Briefly answer the following four questions (max 750 characters each):
- How familiar are you with the existing discourse around existential risk from AI?
- What motivates you to research how the law can help to mitigate the existential risk posed by AI? Discuss the potential implications and challenges associated with this area and how you believe your skills and background can contribute to addressing these risks.
- Are there any topic(s) you would particularly like to work on during the fellowship, and if so, why?
- What career paths are you considering, and how could the SRF further your career goals?
These responses can be completed quickly. They aren’t looking for perfect essays! They’re looking to get an impression of what you’re thinking about, what you care about, and how you’d approach the program.
Optionally share previous writing samples (which need not relate to our focus areas).

They aim to send invitations to the interview stage within two weeks of receiving your application.

Second stage

This stage will consist of one or two short online interviews. They plan to make the final decision shortly after that. You can let them know if you need an earlier decision, for example in order to begin and complete the fellowship before classes resume.

In exceptional cases, they can consider fellows joining off-season or during the winter.