AI Safety at UCLA Intro Fellowship: Governance Track

Table of Contents

Part 1: Introduction to AI Safety

  1. Week 1: Artificial Intelligence — How it Works and What it Can Achieve
  2. Week 2: Loss of Control
  3. Week 3: Concentration of Power & Gradual Disempowerment

Part 2: Introduction to AI Governance

  1. Week 4: Domestic AI Governance
  2. Week 5: International AI Governance
  3. Week 6: Technical AI Governance & Careers in AI Governance

Part 1: Introduction to AI Safety

Week 1: Artificial Intelligence — How it Works and What it Can Achieve

Core Content (120 min):

  1. Andrej Karpathy - Intro to Large Language Models (60 min)
  2. Machines of Loving Grace (60 min)

Optional Additional Content:

AI History

  1. Visualizing the Deep Learning Revolution by Richard Ngo
  2. Nvidia: The chip maker that became an AI superpower
  3. Compute Trends Across Three Eras of Machine Learning

How AI Works

  1. AI, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning
  2. Gradient Descent: How Neural Networks Learn | Chapter 2, Deep Learning
  3. What is Self Supervised Learning?

AI Futures

  1. The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier
  2. Forecasting Transformative AI, Part 1: What Kind of AI?
  3. The Transformative Potential of AGI – and When It Might Arrive by Shane Legg and Chris Anderson

Week 2: Loss of Control

Core Content (120 min):

  1. AGI Safety from First Principles (60 min)
  2. AI 2027, race ending (60 min)

Optional Additional Content:

First Principles AI Safety

  1. Existential Risk from Power-Seeking AI
  2. Why Would AI Want to do Bad Things? Instrumental Convergence
  3. Why AI Alignment Could Be Hard with Modern Deep Learning by Ajeya Cotra

Surveys of AI Risks

  1. AI Risks that Could Lead to Catastrophe | CAIS
  2. Preventing an AI-Related Catastrophe - 80,000 Hours

Concrete Scenarios

  1. What Failure Looks Like by Paul Christiano
  2. Auto-GPT and AI Race Acceleration by The AI Beat
  3. The True Story of How GPT-2 Became Maximally Lewd

Week 3: Concentration of Power and Gradual Disempowerment

Core Content (120 min):

  1. AI Enabled Coups: How a Small Group Could Use AI to Seize Power (60 min)
  2. Gradual Disempowerment: Systemic Existential Risks from Incremental AI Development (60 min)

Optional Additional Content:

  1. How an AI company CEO could quietly take over the world
  2. Extreme power concentration
  3. Gradual Disempowerment

Part 2: Introduction to AI Governance

Week 4: Domestic AI Governance

Core Content (100 min):

  1. AI Safety, Ethics, and Society: Sections 8.1 (Governance), 8.3 (Distribution), 8.4 (Corporate Governance), and 8.5 (National Governance) (45 min)
  2. Frontier AI Regulation: Managing Emerging Risks to Public Safety: Executive Summary, Sections 3 and 4 (45 min)
  3. California’s SB 53: The First Frontier AI Law, Explained (10 min)

Optional Additional Content:

  1. The AI Triad and What It Means for National Security Strategy
  2. The Policy Playbook: Building a Systems-Oriented Approach to Technology and National Security Policy
  3. Primer on Safety Standards and Regulations for Industrial-Scale AI Development

Week 5: International AI Governance

Core Content (120 min):

  1. Historical case studies of technology governance and international agreements (20 min)
  2. AI Safety, Ethics, and Society: Section 8.6 (International Governance) (20 min)
  3. Analysis of Global AI Governance Strategies (40 min)
  4. High-Level Summary of the EU AI Act (10 min)

Optional Additional Content:

  1. Artificial Intelligence Index Report 2025 section 6.1 - pgs 326-335
  2. Strengthening Resilience to AI Risk: A Guide for UK Policymakers
  3. China’s AI Regulations and How They Get Made
  4. International Institutions for Advanced AI
  5. The Bletchley Declaration
  6. OECD AI Principles

Week 6: Technical AI Governance and Careers in AI Governance

Core Content (100 min):

  1. Computing Power and the Governance of AI (10 min)
  2. Open Problems in Technical AI Governance: Sections 1, 2, and one section from 3-8 (40 min)
  3. AI governance and policy | Career review (50 min)

Optional Additional Content:

Technical AI Governance

  1. Choking Off China’s Access to the Future of AI
  2. Primer on AI Chips and AI Governance
  3. An International Agreement to Prevent the Premature Creation of Artificial Superintelligence

Careers in AI Governance

  1. Advice for Undergraduates
  2. Aptitudes for AI Governance Work
  3. AI Safety Career Opportunities Job Board