AI Safety Argumentation Platform Research Engineer
Job description
Build and operate CARMA's evidentiary infrastructure for systematizing arguments about AGI/ASI catastrophic risk, combining ontologies, knowledge graphs, defeasible argumentation frameworks, and LLM-assisted population pipelines. The role sits where argumentation theory meets agentic AI tooling, feeding structured argument content into communications flows for policymakers, technical audiences, journalists, and the public.
At a glance
- Work mode
- Remote
- Pay
- USD 160,000 – 210,000 / year
What you'll do
- Extend ontologies and knowledge graph schemas representing claims, evidence, argument structures, defeaters, and confidence
- Implement defeasible argumentation frameworks (e.g., ASPIC+, Dung-style, argumentation schemes) that capture both logical structure and vulnerability to rebuttal
- Operate and quality-control LLM-driven population pipelines, with cross-check scaffolds, provenance tracking, and human-in-the-loop curation
- Architect agent coordination patterns for multi-step research and population tasks, with robust error handling and graceful degradation
- Pre-harden argument structures by mapping the strongest counterarguments, steel-manned objections, and known defeaters
- Build export pipelines that translate structured argumentation into diverse communications formats across audiences and registers
- Maintain current awareness across AI safety, capabilities, and governance sufficient to know when new developments require graph updates, and to know where to find authoritative further detail
- Collaborate with communications staff and researchers to ensure outputs serve real persuasive needs
What we're looking for
- Working familiarity with formal or semi-formal argumentation theory (abstract or structured argumentation, defeasible reasoning, dialectical models, or argumentation schemes)
- Experience with ontology engineering or knowledge graph development (OWL/RDF, property graphs, or equivalent)
- Operational experience with LLM agent systems: agent coordination platforms, prompt engineering at scale, and QC regimes for LLM outputs (adversarial probing, consistency checks, calibration)
- Fluent vibecoding practice: rapid prototyping and shipping with LLM-assisted development in production-adjacent contexts
- Substantive grounding in AI safety, AI governance, and current frontier-AI dynamics, with the literacy to locate authoritative sources on any sub-topic or human expertise in the space
- Familiarity with philosophy of science concepts bearing on evidence: defeaters, burden of proof, inference to the best explanation, underdetermination
- Good coding skills; comfort with graph databases or query languages
- Experience designing cross-check and verification scaffolds for unreliable automated processes
- Sound judgment about when a claim is well-supported versus when it needs hedging, further substantiation, or withdrawal
- Self-directed; strong written communication
Nice to have
- Graduate work or equivalent depth in argumentation theory, computational argumentation, epistemology, or philosophy of science
- Familiarity with AIF, Carneades, or comparable computational argumentation tools
- Track record in AI safety or governance (publications, policy work, or substantive community contributions)
- Background in argument mining, claim extraction, or stance detection
- Experience with debate formats or structured deliberation methods
- Understanding of motivated reasoning, belief change, and cognitive biases as they bear on communications strategy
- Open-source contributions in any relevant area
Your team
CARMA
The Center for AI Risk Management & Alignment (CARMA) works to help society navigate the complex and potentially catastrophic risks arising from increasingly powerful AI systems.
Apply
About Future of Life Organizations
The Center for AI Risk Management & Alignment (CARMA) works to help society navigate the complex and potentially catastrophic risks arising from increasingly powerful AI systems. We focus on grounding AI risk management in rigorous analysis, developing policy frameworks that squarely address AGI, advancing technical safety approaches, and fostering global perspectives on durable safety. CARMA is a fiscally-sponsored project of Social & Environmental Entrepreneurs, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public benefit corporation.
Mission
To lower the risks to humanity and the biosphere from transformative AI.
Key facts
- CARMA is a fiscally-sponsored project of Social & Environmental Entrepreneurs, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public benefit corporation
- Position is 100% remote but requires occasional travel