Research Engineer, Rule of Law

Anthropic•San Francisco, NY

7d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Rule of Law Team at the Anthropic Institute is seeking a Research Engineer to conduct technical and sociotechnical research at the intersection of AI and democratic institutions. This role involves examining how AI impacts constitutional democratic institutions, seeking ways to protect democratic freedoms, and developing strategies for technology and policy. The work will contribute to research publications, policy work, safety systems, and products. Key areas of focus include assuring AI agents obey the law through evaluations and fine-tuning, ensuring AI reinforces constitutional democracy by analyzing its impact on government structure, and enriching civic participation using AI to support deliberation and improve citizen-government interactions.

Requirements

Deep expertise in AI together with substantive expertise in government, law, political science, or public policy.
Advanced skills in deep learning, together with capabilities in data science, mechanism design, govtech, deliberative tech, or a related field.
Deeply understand experimental design, data analysis and inferential statistics.
At least five years of work experience in academia, industry, or government.
Comfortable navigating the ambiguity inherent to novel research, including settings where the objective itself is hard to define.
Strong technical skills in sociotechnical settings: thinking carefully about human factors, how AI systems interact with groups of humans, and human behavior.
Energized by working at the intersection of technical research and questions of democracy and institutional design.

Nice To Haves

Designing and running evaluations or fine-tuning experiments on large language models.
Large-scale data analysis.
UX and interface design, with an eye toward making complex tools intuitive for non-technical users.
Engineering with privacy considerations front of mind.
Research relating to deliberative technology, civic technology, or the societal impacts of AI.
Working with or within government, courts, legislatures, or public policy institutions.

Responsibilities

Design and run AI safety evaluations focused on legal alignment, and conduct technical work (including fine-tuning) to improve targeted aspects of model performance.
Leverage AI to analyze institutional vulnerabilities created or exacerbated by AI itself, and develop accompanying sociotechnical mitigations.
Develop novel applications of AI to bolster and enrich democratic processes.
Conduct rigorous sociotechnical studies on how information furnished by AI can support informed deliberation and debate.
Partner closely with researchers, policy and law experts, and other cross-functional teams across Anthropic to advance our safety mission.
Translate research insights into actionable recommendations for both product and policy.