Approving! The Aurora Scholarship is exactly the kind of program that we're excited for regrantors to initiate; props to Joel and Renan for driving this.
2
Explainer and analysis of CNCERT/CC (国家互联网应急中心)
Project summary
The National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center of China (CNCERT/CC) is emerging as a key institutional player in Chinese AI governance. Much about it remains unknown and overlooked in policy discourse. This project examines the functions of the CNCERT/CC in order to shed light on its likely influence on China’s AI policy trajectory.
What are this project's goals and how will you achieve them?
The goal is to produce a legible writeup for policy audiences which adds to their existing view of the Chinese AI governance landscape. Timeline: early Jan - mid Feb 2024.
This will be achieved by
Identifying, translating, and summarizing primary sources relevant to understanding the CNCERT/CC’s priorities, expertise, and institutional connections.
In particular, I plan to focus on the CNCERT/CC’s relationship with the newly established expert committee on AI security governance under its supervision, drawing on a similar relationship between the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) and the algorithm registry as well as updates from the new committee.
Analyzing the implications of this view of CNCERT/CC, such as how China’s AI regulations are likely to evolve to address cybersecurity concerns.
This will be done through literature review on Chinese AI governance and input from researchers with relevant expertise.
How will this funding be used?
4-6 weeks salary, $600/week
Who is on your team and what's your track record on similar projects?
Matt Sheehan
What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails? (premortem)
Low tractability due to insufficient information available about the CNCERT/CC and its intentions regarding AI security governance. Based on an initial search, I put this at 20%-40% likely. This can probably be mitigated by consulting with people familiar with Chinese AI governance or the institution.
I may lack domain-specific knowledge and heuristics to project findings about the CNCERT/CC onto insights about Chinese AI policy. I put this about 10% likely with the available mentorship. In the worst case, this results in the project being a explainer without analysis, which I think would still be worthwhile.
I turn out to be fundamentally wrong about the CNCERT/CC’s importance and neglectedness in policy research. I put this at about 10-40% likely.
What other funding are you or your project getting?
None
donated $1,500
donated $1,500
Joel Becker
12 months ago
I've made a $1.5k offer to this project; @RenanAraujo will do the same. (@Austin could you possibly raise the maximum funding limit, just in case others are interested in going beyond the $3k that we agreed with Alexa?)
Main points in favor of this grant
Renan and I put out a call to an invite-only scholarship program, the "Aurora Scholarship," to 9 individuals recommended by a source we trust. We were aiming to support people who are nationals of or have lived in China with a $2,400-$4,800 scholarship for a research project in a topic related to technical AI safety or AI governance. The project should last for approximately 4-8 weeks (i.e. we aim to offer $600/week at 20h/week).
Our hope is that scholars might use the experience and signaling value of these projects to counterfactually advance through to the next stage in their chosen career pipeline (e.g., PhD acceptance, think-tank placement), and that this program will strengthen the Chinese AI safety community. The program is loosely inspired by this CAIS program (but note we're not affiliated with CAIS and this does not mean CAIS endorses this program), especially in the sense that it is a requirement to join the program that each scholar has to seek their own supervisor.
Alexa was one of our excellent applicants.
Matt Sheehan is a well-respected China analyst who obviously believes in this project. I'm looking forward to seeing how Alexa gets on, and am excited for her to benefit from mentor feedback and association.
Donor's main reservations
I feel ill-equipped to judge the object-level benefits (and therefore downsides) of AI governance projects related to China, which worries me a little. But it seems unlikely that a small project driven by a promising undergraduate (and Concordia affiliate) and mentored by a respected, mainstream, US-based China analyst could result in serious downside.
Targeting the Aurora Scholarship invitees in the way we have has greater possible downside. We think this is fairly low, and have taken steps to lower this further (e.g. by not including junior researchers currently located in China).
Process for deciding amount
In her application, Alexa suggested to us that this project would take "median 15h/week" for "4-6 weeks." I took the maximum of rounding up one of these numbers (for possible expenses/planning fallacy). Max($30 x 20 x 5, $30 x 15 x 6) = $3,000.
Conflicts of interest
None.