Description du poste
Written for the August 2026 version of the course (ie. the previous version)
These unofficial notes were written for a previous version of the BlueDot strategy course (last run August 2026). They “pre-notes” in that they are intended to be shared before the session. They aim to supplement the readings; I have made no attempt to summarise them. I always emphasise to students that this is bonus material, rather than core. As supplementary material, these notes are targeted at a much higher context audience than the course itself.
Since this course is no longer being actively run, I'm prioritising getting these notes out there over perfect copy editing. I have some additional notes on the different actors that were listed in the old exercise which I will be publishing soon.
Preparing for Launch:
• “The benefits of AI progress may not come quickly enough… For example, markets alone may not prioritize AI that automates the replication of scientific studies, or investigate new medical treatments that can’t be patented, or conduct basic research in neuroscience with no immediate commercial applications” — to what extent is this research dual-use? Insofar as it is dual use, are there ways of accessing these capabilities that don’t produce these externalities? Conversely, will these efforts have a significant impact or are separate efforts unnecessary given how rapidly AI has developed anyway:• Currently, AI is rapidly accelerating our progress in maths research and now we’re starting to see results in physics. Should we expect to see similar progress in other scientific fields as well soon, or will these domains prove much less tractable?• Deepmind dismantled its Nobel-Prize Winning AlphaFold Team. Is this an indicator that Google believes domain-specific work is unnecessary or is this purely a commercial decision driven by Gemini falling behind?• “AI safety researchers have devoted insufficient attention to solutions that assume that dangerous AI capabilities will rapidly