Job description

Principles of Intelligence • Cape Town, South Africa

PIBBSS Fellowship

A ~3-month interdisciplinary program connecting researchers with AI safety mentors.

Work on projects at the intersection of your field and AI safety. This program focuses on selecting excellent researchers and matching them with mentors suited to their experience and goals. The program is targeted toward those with research experience, coming from diverse fields, looking to transition into AI safety.

Duration: ~3 months (November 2026- February 2027) Cohort: ~20 fellows Stipend: $3,000/month + accommodation provided Location: Cape Town, South Africa (in-person, remote for exceptional candidates)

73

alumni placed in government, AI safety labs, and universities

Our alumni work as independent researchers and in:

We are accepting applications for the 2026-2027 Winter fellowship!

Application Form Program Structure & Benefits Post-AGI Civilisation Dynamics / Gradual Disempowerment track Who Should Apply Application Process

Program Structure & Benefits
The fellowship includes:

Pre-program reading group on AI risks (remote)

Multi-day opening and closing retreat with cohort and AI safety researchers

3 month full-time research with dedicated mentor

Shared office space with regular speaker talks and community events

Final symposium presentation in Spring 2027

Financial support:

$3,000/month stipend (full-time commitment)

Accommodation provided: Private bedroom for each attendee (may be in a shared apartment)

Workday meals provided at the office (lunch, dinner, snacks)

One return flight for Cape Town, South Africa

Short-term visa support letters available

Past fellows have gone on to positions at AI safety labs, UK AISI, academia, and independent research.
View talks from previous cohorts on our YouTube page.

For questions, reach out at [email protected] or join our upcoming information session (both will be recorded):

July 14, 2026, 08:00 San Francisco time, 11:00 New York time, 17:00 Berlin time, 23:00 Singapore time Link to Register
July 15, 2026, 18:00 San Francisco time, 21:00 New York time, 03:00 Berlin time, 09:00 Singapore time Link to Register

Post-AGI Civilisation Dynamics / Gradual Disempowerment track

This year, we’re offering a Gradual Disempowerment track for up to 4 Fellows, made possible by ACS Research. The track is about understanding what happens to human civilization as the systems it runs on — the economy, culture, state — gradually stop depending on human participation, and about finding the equilibria in which humans still retain meaningful agency.

Possible topics include:

Post-AGI Economics
- Modelling the economy while relaxing some classical assumptions, e.g. that capital stays mostly human-owned, that humans remain the main consumers, that human labour matters economically, that property rights hold, etc. See e.g. Post-AGI Economics As If Nothing Ever Happens.
- Economic models of historical cases where a group’s economic relevance and political power came apart (fall of aristocracies, company rule in India), or the relationship between labour share and freedom and democracy.
Post-AGI Culture
- Modelling what changes when machines become the dominant substrate on which ideas are created, spread, and mutated, using tools from cultural evolution, epidemiology, and parasitology. See e.g. Xhosa prophecies or persona parasitology
Post-AGI Governance
- How will AI reshape global governance? How can we maintain meaningful human involvement in decision-making when AI alternatives are more efficient?

Who might this be a good fit for? We especially welcome:

economists willing to take the ideas above seriously,
theorists with understanding of cultural evolution and theoretical evolutionary biology, or
polymaths comfortable working across multiple disciplines.

Relevant backgrounds include political science, mechanism design, game theory, history, philosophy, complex systems, machine learning, sociology, cultural evolution, and law.

For reference, see also Gradual Disempowerment or Post-AGI workshop talks.

Who Should Apply

The fellowship is for researchers motivated to contribute to AI safety with expertise in fields studying complex and intelligent systems.

Relevant fields include but are not limited to:

Mathematics
Neuroscience and cognitive science
Dynamical systems theory
Physics
Philosophy (particularly philosophy of science, mind, or ethics)
Political and economic theory
Ecology and evolutionary biology
Linguistics
Media studies
Humanities

While aimed at PhD and postdoctoral researchers, we welcome applicants with substantial research experience regardless of credentials. We accept applicants from all countries.

You do not need a specific project in mind when applying. We help match fellows with mentors and develop projects during the interview process.

Application Process

Applications for the 2026-2027 Winter fellowship are now open. The process includes:

Stage 1: Written application

CV/résumé
Personal statement (600-800 words on research background and motivation)
Past work samples (optional but recommended)

Stage 2-4: Interviews and project development

Multiple interview rounds to discuss research interests, develop project proposals, and match with mentors.

For me, PrincInt is a fertile space where ideas have slack, creating potential to bring truly new perspectives to the field of AI safety.

Alexandre Variengien

Independent Researcher, ex-Technology Specialist at the EU AI Office

The PIBBSS fellowship was a great environment to do research. I found the research strategy coaching provided by the PrincInt team very beneficial, and I particularly enjoyed bouncing ideas around with the other fellows.

Magdalena Wache

Researcher at Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology

PrincInt provided me an incredibly open and supportive environment to start thinking about AI safety and related topics, and fostered an environment where a broad range of ideas were welcomed and encouraged. My work and research direction has been strongly shaped by my experience with PrincInt and I still enjoy the community formed during my time with them.

Nischal Mainali

PhD candidate in computational neuroscience in Burak Lab

PrincInt is one of the few communities (carefully designed and cultivated) to be truly interdisciplinary in all the ways that are relevant to long-term AI safety. If you’re wondering how the brain compares to modern foundation models, you will be in good company. If you want to understand how law and policy can adapt to mitigate near and long-term harms from AI, you will find instructive collaboration here. If you want to investigate how AI’s behavior compares to human cognitive tendencies and fallacies, or even other forms of biological and social intelligence, you will find expertise in each of these domains at PrincInt. The exciting interdisciplinary ideas and community sparked by the PrincInt environment is uncommon and so necessary for truly impactful AI safety research. The long-term answers for AI safety will come from a coming together of these fields, and PrincInt is one of the few environments that is designed to help us get there.

2025 PIBBSS Fellow

Timeline

The application deadline is July 20, 2026 (23:59 Anywhere on Earth). Expect to hear back from us by mid-September 2026.

Meet our 2026 Fellows

Principles of Intelligence brings together researchers, mentors, and advisors from diverse scientific backgrounds

View all past fellows and mentors PrincInt provided the perfect multidisciplinary environment and stimulating culture I needed to transition from neuroscience into AI alignment work. The program connects inspired fellows to tackle neglected and crucial problems, introducing me to the community and giving me the foundation to pursue impactful research in this field.

Jan Kirchner

Researcher, Anthropic

PrincInt turned cross-disciplinary ideas into concrete alignment progress. The fellowship sharpened my research agenda, connected me with outstanding mentors, and led to publishable outputs and policy-relevant work.

Joel Christoph

10Billion.org Founder, Japan-IMF Scholar & Economics PhD

The relationships I made and experiences I had as a PIBBSS fellow back in 2022 still influence how I think about my work and its impact years later. PrincInt helped me see how to bridge academic philosophy and AI safety research, which is a large part of how I try to make change.

Daniel Alexander Herrmann

Assistant Professor of Philosophy at UNC Chapel Hill

PIBBSS effectively connects many relevant academic disciplines to alignment research and fosters an environment of genuine truth-seeking and understanding, setting a high epistemic bar for the field.

Eleni Angelou

Oxford Centre for the Governance of AI winter 2026 fellow

The PIBBSS Fellowship played a key role in my transition from a PhD in Computer Science into AI Safety research. It allowed me to discover how my expertise could contribute to this field and to connect with a community that supported my next step as a postdoctoral researcher at Oxford.

Agustín Martinez Suñé

Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Oxford

PrincInt gave me my start in AI safety. The fellowship introduced me to a broad range of perspectives on AI alignment, and gave me the time, encouragement, and support I needed to develop my own AI governance ideas.

Gabriel Weil

Assistant Professor at Touro University Law Center, Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Institute for Law & AI

2026-2027 Winter Fellowship Application

Application Form

Fellowship