“Talent Constraints in AI Safety: What We Know and What We Don’t” by Weronika Żurek 🔸

Summary AI safety is constrained on talent in many ways, but the reasons behind the constraints vary between types of talent. This post is based on all posts and documents I could find from the past ~ 3 years related to hiring needs and talent pipelines, which I have listed in this document. Technical research talent - we have strong talent pipelines delivering young researchers to the field, but we are constrained on more senior researchers who could mentor the juniors, e.g., as research managers. We might also need more talent to work on AI security. Policy and governance talent - there is some infrastructure bringing talent to work on policy and governance, but it's not as robust as for technical research. The information about what is needed in this sub-field is quite scarce, but some data points to the need for talent that combines technical and policy skills, and for experienced political operators. Generalist talent - finding candidates for operational and fieldbuilding roles is challenging across the field. In particular, talent with deep context of AI safety and senior operators are scarce. There are few talent development programs bringing skilled generalists to the field. Grantmaking talent - just [...] --- Outline: (00:12) Summary (02:28) Introduction (16:28) Ops and fieldbuilding (generalist) constraint (18:58) Now that weve clarified that: are we constrained on fieldbuilders and operators? (23:39) Grantmakers (29:25) Scaling (29:51) Leadership (32:57) Founding new organisations (34:59) Scaling the existing organisations (37:12) Limitations & caveats (38:36) Some information that I think should be published, but its not --- First published: May 14th, 2026 Source: --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO .