The ML Alignment & Theory Scholars program (MATS, formerly SERI MATS) is an education and research mentorship program for emerging AI safety researchers. This summer, we held the fourth iteration of the MATS program, in which 60 scholars received mentorship from 17 research mentors. In this post, we explain the elements of the program, lay out some of the thinking behind them, and evaluate our impact.

Summary.

Key details about the Summer 2023 Program:

Educational attainment of MATS scholars:
- 30% of scholars are students.
- 88% have at least a Bachelor's degree.
- 10% are in a Master's program.
- 10% are in a PhD program.
- 13% have a PhD.
If not for MATS, scholars might have worked at a tech company (41%), upskilled independently (46%), or conducted research independently over the summer (50%). (Note: this was a multiple-choice response.)

Key takeaways from our impact evaluation:

MATS scholars are highly likely to recommend [...]

---

Outline:

(04:23) Theory of Change

(05:58) Overview of MATS Summer 2023 Program

(06:03) Schedule Overview

(06:56) Program Elements

(07:20) Scholar Support

(09:45) Workshops

(10:23) Networking Events

(10:46) Seminars

(11:19) Community Health

(12:38) Mentor Selection

(15:23) Scholar Selection

(17:15) Educational attainment of scholars

(17:59) Counterfactual summers

(19:34) Training Phase (June 5 - June 30)

(20:33) Research Phase (July 10 - Sep 1)

(20:49) Mentorship styles

(21:58) Scholar Support

(23:29) Research Milestones

(24:51) Workshops, Seminars, Networking Events

(25:31) Community Health

(26:06) Extension Phase (Sep 18 - Jan 1)

(28:01) Evaluation of MATS Summer 2023

(28:12) Evaluating Program Elements

(28:16) Alignment 201

(29:01) Overall Program

(29:22) Value of Mentorship

(32:49) Value of Scholar Support

(35:05) Workshops and Seminars

(36:09) Community Health

(37:50) Evaluating Outcomes

(37:53) Research Milestones

(39:15) Research ability

(44:23) Networking

(45:35) Career Obstacles

(46:48) Lessons and Changes for Future Programs

(47:02) 1. Filtering better during the application stage

(48:22) 2. Providing more technical support

(48:53) 3. More proactively supporting professional development beyond mentorship

(49:49) 4. Offering research management help to mentors

(50:43) 5. Reducing the number of seminars

(51:13) 6. Improving communication with scholars during the program

(51:39) 7. Developing more robust internal systems

(51:59) 8. Frontloading social events

(52:24) Acknowledgements

The original text contained 7 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
December 1st, 2023

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zwf68YaySvXhWYCdh/mats-summer-2023-postmortem-1

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“MATS Summer 2023 Postmortem” by Rocket, Juan Gil, Ryan Kidd, Christian Smith, McKennaFitzgerald, LauraVaughan

LessWrong (30+ Karma)