How can I contribute to aisafety.info as a volunteer?

Our work takes place on the Rob Miles Discord. You’ll need to join — e.g., through this invite link — in order to participate. Discord is a text-based chat platform similar to IRC or Slack, and can be used for voice and video conversations as well. If you’re finding it confusing, consider watching a video introduction.

There are a few areas where the site could use volunteer help.

Writing and editing

Work on the site’s content happens in the #meta-editing and #editing-forum channels on Discord. If you’d like to get involved, or have questions about getting involved, people working on the project will be happy to answer your questions in #meta-editing.

You can find more information on Coda, which is a tool we use to manage and organize the various articles, and in the Editing Guide, which explains the processes we use in detail. However, you don’t need to read or understand everything on those pages to jump in.

To get started working on the content:

• If you prefer improving existing entries on the site: look at the different sections under “Articles” on the site and navigate to individual articles, using the “Suggest changes in Google Docs” button (see image below) to reach an article’s Google doc, or sort the Google Drive directory of live articles by last modified date to get a sense of what people are currently working on. Use suggestion mode and comments on a doc to share your ideas for improving it.

• If you prefer helping bring existing drafts to the point where they can be published: look at what people are working on in the #editing-forum Discord channel or in the Google Drive directory of unpublished articles (sorted by last modified date), and share your ideas via suggestion mode and comments on docs, or in Discord threads. You can also look at our Coda page for in-progress entries and ask in #meta-editing on Discord about plans for entries you’re interested in.

• If you prefer writing new drafts: think about which subject areas you’d like to write about, and maybe look at our Coda pages of unstarted entries and dormant entries for ideas. Then, when you have a rough plan for an article (perhaps a couple of sentences describing what will be in the article, or some bullet points sketching out the content), ask in #meta-editing on Discord whether your plan makes sense before writing it.

We have previously had group calls for writing/editing volunteers and may have more in the future. See Discord for details.

Code

AIsafety.info has a few projects that could use coding help, including the web front-end, a web chatbot, and a Discord bot. If you’re interested in contributing and you’d like to figure out how, you can introduce yourself in the Development thread on Discord. The code is available on Github — if you’re looking for a place to jump in, note especially the lists of open issues and the project board.

Translation

We’re exploring how to host versions of aisafety.info in languages other than English. If you’re interested in helping translate the content and experiment with systems for doing so, please let us know in #meta-editing on Discord.

Feedback

If you’re interested in helping out by providing or gathering feedback, feel free to introduce yourself in the Feedback thread on Discord.

Design

If you’re interested in helping out with the design of the site, feel free to introduce yourself in the Design & Product thread on Discord.

Outreach

If you’re interested in helping with outreach, feel free to introduce yourself in the Outreach thread on Discord.