This guide is primarily intended for individuals who are considering or have started a new AI safety university group.

Before you get started, double-check whether there is already a group in your university or city, and try to find out if there are other people interested in starting a group - maybe you can work together. If there are existing AI safety groups in nearby cities or universities, it might be helpful to get involved in them before you embark on your own.

To find local AI safety people, you can:

• Search in key Slack groups like the AI Alignment Slack, the AI Safety Groups Slack, and Slack groups for popular courses like BlueDot, ARENA, etc.
• Search on LinkedIn. Search for specific keywords like “AI safety,” “BlueDot,” “machine learning,” “ARENA,” and “effective altruism.” Then select “see all people results” → “all filters” and filter by your city or school.
• Do a quick Google search for your university’s name + “AI safety,” “alignment,” etc.
• Check to see if your university has a directory of organizations. You can sometimes find this publicly on Google, or sometimes there’s an internal tool your university uses to track groups. Ask an advisor or older students to see how they do this.
• Search for nearby people on LessWrong or the EA Forum (as both communities have significant overlap with AI Safety)
• Ask us if we know anyone in your area

This guide contains a compilation of ideas from different sources and different experiences.  Every organizer and group is different, and ideas that work well for one group may need to be adapted to work for another. So, use this guide as a starting point rather than a prescription, and seek advice from others. Feel free to discuss these ideas with your mentor or bring up these topics during quick-access chats with Neav and Jeremy. We ultimately trust you to do what makes sense in the context of your university group.