{"slug": "learnings-from-a-viral-linkedin-post-what-ai-safety-means-to-talent-outside-the", "title": "Learnings from a 'viral' Linkedin post: What AI Safety means to talent outside the ecosystem.", "summary": "A former Google employee's LinkedIn post offering career guidance to laid-off tech workers resulted in 27 inbound calls within 24 hours, revealing that many talented professionals outside the AI safety ecosystem lack basic understanding of the field. The experiment, funded by a BlueDot Rapid Grant, showed that newcomers require high-context guidance rather than job boards or resource guides to navigate AI safety pathways. The findings highlight a critical gap in engaging non-specialist talent needed to influence AI policy and public will.", "body_md": "On Friday, May 22, I posted a '[Plea to the Laid-off](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7MEZzqQZtf9fQc24T/a-plea-to-the-laid-off-from-an-ex-googler?utm_campaign=post_share&utm_source=link)' on LinkedIn, leveraging my voice as a former Googler. With tremendous support from the community, I got 27 inbound calls in 24 hours & received a small Rapid Grant from BlueDot to fund the post as a Linkedin ad for 12 days.\n\n*Note: While I’ve been funded by Coefficient Giving for my EA SF efforts, this specific project was on my own accord and outside my grant period.*\n\n**Some stats from the article (as of June 2, 12 days post)**\n\n**Actual engagement**\n\n**Sankey of airtable and real-time coaching calls**\n\nI categorized people into various stages:\n\nDue to no shows & cancellations & future calls, I have had ~11/27 calls so far. We’ll cap this as the pilot scope. 12 of these are sitting in the [Airtable intake form](https://airtable.com/appZ64ORcPZ7qBwm9/pagUWub77RSbtamJl/form) as my capacity calibrates for impact.\n\nI expected to be having conversations with people in Stage 2, people who are fully AIS-pilled. From here, I can work with their convictions and guide them to the next steps, weed out the good-fit signal from the noise: programs/fellowships to pursue, local community engagement, pathways discussions, or warm introductions.\n\nInstead, many of the calls entailed introductions or calibrations to the AI Safety field overall.\n\nThis became an experiment that took a different angle. I got to interact with people who haven't yet found an on-ramp through BlueDot, Successif, or SteadRise. People at varying stages of readiness for the AIS ecosystem, but people we desperately need to engage in order to influence policy and public will (i.e., the upcoming Alex Bores Democratic Primary in NYC).\n\nMany people came into the call with either their own perspective on AI Safety or a general understanding that AI could cause harm.\n\n*“AI safety is this — two lenses to that, right? How users would abuse AI, and how AI internally would generate content that is non-compliant…”*\n\n*“For example, let's say I generate a creative and … somehow I have introduced some form of a resemblance to some satanic symbols... and motivating people towards some sort of a cult — then it could be a safety issue”*\n\n*“I'm a dad, and…I had read about this story of a teenager committing suicide. And it broke my heart. So that being said, how can we do a better job to kind of capture the harms or failure modes that these models create?\"*\n\nI think it’s hard to get someone AIS-pilled (to the level of conviction hiring organizations may want) without a longtermist/EA lens.\n\nMaking the case for GCR is really similar to making the case for EA cost-effectiveness. Asking someone to consider longer-term sci-fi-esque intangible outcomes as opposed to the issues that AI is posing now and soon (job displacement, T&S).\n\nIn my guide, I’ve linked resources; while walking a technical SWE through potential destinations in AIS, I pulled up the guide and realized that it is indeed too much information for a low-context individual to navigate without insight into what the journey actually looks like.\n\nSo, I ended up creating my own as a conversation piece/framework with the caveat that research is competitive but everything else is desperately needed!\n\nOn another call, I was talking to a senior Product professional on potential outcomes and navigated to the 80k job board, filtered by Seniority level, and realized that this is also difficult for a new individual to navigate and find relevant information/prospects.\n\n**Lesson**: We can’t just send people guides or job boards: understanding the field & potential outcomes/destinations appears to require high-context guidance.\n\nLike the value of an EAG, it only takes a few impactful ones to make it worth it.\n\nFrom these calls, I came away with:\n\n**2 Bronze tier individuals: Keep in touch as opportunities arise.**\n\n**1 Silver tier individual: Online check-in**\n\nI had the gracious Jonathan Calenzani (EA NYC Organizer) included on the call for an NYC-based individual. This individual got plugged into events at the Collider. I may reach out to check in on how they’re doing next month.\n\n*\"... money is not really the most important thing anymore. And I do want to do something that's a little bit more fulfilling, maybe doing something that's a little bit more for the common good, hopefully.\"*\n\n*\"I know obviously I have a pretty robust background in data science but I know this is a different kind of role too. So it doesn't kind of automatically make me qualified. I'm also thinking about how to sort of frame my experience.\"*\n\n**2 Gold tier: Monthly check-ins and active coaching**\n\nMy follow up emails.\n\nTo a Berkeley-based self-motivated Senior individual in Stage 2:\n\nHere are the resources we discussed in order of priority:\n|\n\nTo a London-based individual in Stage 4:\n\nWhat a great conversation! Here are some resources in order of priority:\n1. Sign up for\n2. After coaching, ask for advice on applying for a\n3. Engage with the AIS Community. Seeing that you are in London, these might be some fantastic ways to get plugged in: 4. Apply to 5. Check out some of these excellent articles on navigating the career pivot (or rather the struggle)\n6. Send me your responses to the BlueDot (or any future job/other) application. I'd be happy to assess to see what the hiccup might be.\n7.\n8. Evidence Action's\nHere is what your journey may look like:\n|\n\n**Mission Alignment & Longtermist Thinking**\n\n**Value of 1-1 Conversations & Coaching**\n\n**Talent ecosystem & user journey needs help**\n\n**Additional resources I’ve found helpful for understanding the talent ecosystem **", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/learnings-from-a-viral-linkedin-post-what-ai-safety-means-to-talent-outside-the", "canonical_source": "https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EhLhrrEEG6Jo9kYJv/learnings-from-a-viral-linkedin-post-what-ai-safety-means-to", "published_at": "2026-06-03 00:19:57+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-03 00:31:04.961104+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-safety", "ai-ethics", "ai-research", "ai-policy", "artificial-intelligence"], "entities": ["LinkedIn", "Google", "BlueDot", "Coefficient Giving", "Effective Altruism", "Airtable"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/learnings-from-a-viral-linkedin-post-what-ai-safety-means-to-talent-outside-the", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/learnings-from-a-viral-linkedin-post-what-ai-safety-means-to-talent-outside-the.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/learnings-from-a-viral-linkedin-post-what-ai-safety-means-to-talent-outside-the.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/learnings-from-a-viral-linkedin-post-what-ai-safety-means-to-talent-outside-the.jsonld"}}