Project summary

I’m a STEM teacher/program builder shifting gears from Robotics to AI Safety because it’s literally the most important thing happening in the world right now. I’m on a mission to transition in the next six months and I’ve got a roadmap to guide my steps— first I need to upskill fast, and plan to hit five major AI safety Conferences in Singapore this September. Before I hit the ground there running, I need to devour all the big AI safety journals: Nature Machine Intelligence, AI Magazine (AAIA), international Journal of Artificial Intelligence Governance and Human Rights, plus all the hot Zero-Cost Access Infrastructure: arXIV (Computer Science/Computers and Society, MDPI Systems: Special Issue on Ethics and Governance of AI), The International AI Safety Report Platform. Why? Because I know what’s needed to solve two big needs— a flowing pipeline of trained talent ready to grapple with the safety requirements of the fast-advancing cutting edge of tech, and the policy/training frameworks that builds the missing structural bridge between frontier alignment and field execution. 

What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?

My goals in this career transition moment are to upskill fast and then use what I’ve learned to help this AI implementation crisis. K-12 schools need an AI Safety policy and developmentally appropriate training frameworks. Businesses in every industry need operational deployment models and training protocols. But with AI implementation occurring everywhere, all at once, it seems inevitable that many businesses are fundamentally unprepared and don’t know, what they don’t know — and the compounding unknown unknowns are the crux of the danger. I want to compare my ideas of how to address these issues with the data and interpretations of the AI Safety experts publishing in journals and presenting at global AI safety conferences, align my policy notes to current and projected realities, and translate it into actionable, practical steps and policies that organizations can grasp and implement. To disseminate my recommendations I will work with global think tanks and education agencies to spread the open-source solutions.

How will this funding be used?

To purchase subscriptions to top AI Safety research journals: Nature Machine Intelligence, AI Magazine, International Journal of Artificial Intelligence Governance and Human Rights, and from the Singapore global AI safety conferences I’ll be attending in September I want to acquire Global AI Governance and Alignment Briefs; Institutional Frameworks and White Papers, and Frontier Model Vulnerability and Red-Teaming Reports.

Who is on your team? What's your track record on similar projects? I’m the team now, but I hope to network and gain mentors, collaborators, and interested clients as I go through this six month journey of discovery. My track record is actually the model I’m using for this career transformation. 15 years ago I was a science teacher and curriculum writer and realized I needed to transform myself and pivot my career into STEM. Before there were big name textbooks or roadmaps, I forged myself a new reality, learning robotics, engineering, coding, drones and more and then building the ecosystem I needed to live in, giving workshops and presentations for administrators and teachers at education and technology conferences, school boards, and libraries, coaching robotics and rocketry competitive teams, teaching technocamps and afterschool workshops for students and achieving $186,000 in STEM grants for education, while making connections and friends all over the developing industry. I know I have the ability to learn complex tech, translate it into natural language and break ideas down into hands-on learning experiences non-tech people can grasp and enjoy, then emulate and teach to others on their own turf. AI Deployment is a lot like that early STEM landscape, where schools and companies were eager to help build the future, but didn’t really know what they were doing yet. But now, the stakes are much higher.

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?

School systems and enterprise businesses are already feeling the stress of the new AI realities, and anxieties are building in both ecosystems. In schools, students may know more about using LLMs than their teachers do but lack the ethical judgement to make good decisions in how, when, and why they use it, compromising their learning or even causing them to face disciplinary action for misuse when a model could be a brilliant private tutor accelerating their learning if it was approached correctly and safely. Teachers, parents and school boards are anxious about the ungovernable forces they perceive shaping the future of education and fear that changes will not turn out to be improvements.

Businesses are already showing signs of stress. Look at any job board, at position listings, and read through them — almost every one will reference AI deployment, job restructuring, new change implementation departments, new policy training surges, overhaul of learning architecture, reassignment of responsibilities and downsizing — all are indicators, in this new reality, of competitive pressures driving a surge of AI implementation before corporate leadership has mapped out the framework it will be built on — they’re redesigning the airplane as it is flying—what could possibly go wrong?

Both ecosystems are under stress and need policy and training frameworks — yesterday. They need their people — their Human Resources, to trust — trust their leadership, and trust AI, but neither can happen until governance, policy and training has caught up with the runaway train of AI deployment. And when the humans are stressed, about the fear of being made redundant, the fear of litigation for missteps (because you can’t blame the AI or hold it liable for damage), or the fear of the on rushing future, those humans don’t do their jobs well, they lack the positive spirit needed to stay well, to attend to the needed learning, to pay attention to the job at hand, to demonstrate that curiosity, humor, and adaptability we’re sometimes celebrated for. And those little fails create a feedback loop of increasing dysfunction and paralysis.

How much money have you raised in the last 12 months, and from where?

I have savings and a modest income and will self-fund my endeavor while I seek additional funding. I have applied for three grants at this time and plan to keep “shaking the trees” (to see what falls out) as I work my way through the AI Safety ecosystem grant providers.