PAI Program Initiative Program Lead: ABOUT ML
The Partnership on AI (PAI) is seeking a full-time Program Lead to join the high-growth, high-potential ABOUT ML initiative. This Program Lead will report to the lead for ABOUT ML and will work with key PAI stakeholders, including Partners, policymakers, experts from diverse fields, impacted communities, and PAI staff. This is a full time role that will begin August 2020.
Background
The ABOUT ML initiative aims to set a new industry norm of creating useful and accessible documentation for all machine learning systems in order to help organizations enact responsible AI development and deployment. Documentation for machine learning has been identified as a foundational and powerful enabler of transparency and thus accountability for machine learning and AI. Making it possible for more organizations to produce high quality and useful documentation on their ML systems is a foundational step for PAI’s mission of AI benefiting people and society. Many PAI Partners are excited about the prospect for ABOUT ML’s recommendations to contribute to growing responsible practices within AI development and deployment.
To ground the ABOUT ML recommendations in previous research, expertise, and experience from other domains that deploy documentation (e.g. healthcare, financial services, consumer products, chemical safety, etc.) as well as existing work on ML documentation specifically, ABOUT ML contains the following multistakeholder input processes:
Public Comment
Steering Committee
Diverse Voices
Solicited Expert Input
ABOUT ML aims to produce evidence-backed, effective recommendations for how organizations can develop the tooling and processes to create documentation for the machine learning systems they build as well as research-backed templates for how best to present the documented information for different audiences. In order to achieve these goals, PAI will be conducting several large scale multistakeholder research projects and pilots with Partner organizations and beyond.
About this role
This Program Lead for ABOUT ML will report to the lead of the ABOUT ML project and support programmatic, multistakeholder, and research processes, with tremendous room for growth as this multiyear initiative scales. This Program Lead will work closely with the ABOUT ML lead on multistakeholder research projects and outputs, Steering Committee convenings, public comment process, soliciting expert input, coordination for pilots, and additional activities as the initiative evolves to include implementation phases. The Program Lead will be responsible for project management within multiple workstreams of ABOUT ML, conducting literature reviews, providing drafting and editing assistance for ABOUT ML research outputs, consolidating input from our multi-stakeholder processes, moderating online forums as part of the public commenting process, and other programmatic support tasks as necessary to help improve the quality of ABOUT ML outputs and activities in service of the greater goal of setting a new industry norm for documenting all machine learning systems.
This Program Lead will be joining an ongoing initiative that encompasses research, design, testing, iteration, and implementation phases, so responsibilities will likely evolve over time. In general, responsibilities will be divided between project management, multistakeholder coordination and relationship management, and research support activities. The ABOUT ML initiative interacts with people from many different domains by design. This Program Lead should have the ability to work effectively with diverse stakeholders, including identifying areas of shared interests and divergent goals, generating buy-in and momentum for the program, and distilling research from diverse disciplines for varied audiences.
PAI is headquartered in San Francisco, with a global membership base and scope but we will consider remote work.
Key responsibilities include:
Project management:
Manage workstream planning, strategy, and execution with a high degree of autonomy
Research process options to enable scalable debate of core outstanding questions
Create new processes and programmatic elements in response to stakeholder/program needs
Define, organize, and facilitate key meetings and events for PAI (e.g., defining day’s agenda and goals; ensuring the right participants for intended outcomes)
Multistakeholder coordination and relationship management:
Develop and maintain strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders
Solicit, record, and summarize feedback from stakeholders
Identify untapped stakeholders and ways to increase ABOUT ML’s reach for both input and output
Moderate ABOUT ML’s online forum
Track inbound interest and triage responses, eventually automating this process to the extent possible
Generate buy-in and excitement for ABOUT ML at multiple levels of Partner organizations
Participate in funding / prospective partner conversations as appropriate
Research support:
Conduct literature reviews and summarize findings as part of ABOUT ML research output
Draft and edit ABOUT ML output products
Assist ABOUT ML Research Fellows with project management and multistakeholder aspects of research projects
Key qualifications include:
Excellent written and oral communication skills
A track record for quality project execution, including experience managing multiple workstreams simultaneously and ability to deliver on time and to a high bar of excellence
Creativity and flexibility to achieve goals and outcomes
Adaptability when working with people from different industries, domains, and types of expertise
Comfort in navigating highly cross-functional internal PAI organization as well as large external network of PAI Partners and stakeholders
Ability to quickly gain familiarity with relevant technical and social science literature
5+ years of experience working full-time in professional environments, ideally in cross-functional roles
A Bachelor’s Degree (graduate-level coursework or research is preferred). Familiarity with social science and/or computer science is ideal.
PAI is a fast-paced organization that often requires quick turnarounds, so initiative and efficiency is critical for success in this position. Because of the varied and dynamic nature of PAI’s multistakeholder research projects, the ideal candidate should have experience working on projects with diverse stakeholders.
PAI is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and we are committed to creating an inclusive environment in all aspects of employment, including recruiting, hiring, promoting, training, education assistance, social and recreational programs, compensation, benefits, transfers, discipline, and all privileges and conditions of employment. Employment decisions at PAI are based on business needs, job requirements, and individual qualifications.
PAI will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance or similar laws.
The Partnership on AI may become subject to certain governmental record keeping and reporting requirements for the administration of civil rights laws and regulations. We also track diversity in our workforce for the purpose of improving over time. In order to comply with these goals, the Partnership on AI invites employees to voluntarily self-identify their gender and race/ethnicity. Submission of this information is voluntary and refusal to provide it will not jeopardize or adversely affect employment or any consideration you may receive for employment or advancement. The information obtained will be kept confidential.
Application Materials:
1. Resume and/or CV
2. Cover Letter
3. 3-5 page writing sample (please append to cover letter): this can be any writing for which you were primarily an author and does not need to be about any topic related to this project or PAI
4. 3 References [name, title, email, phone]
Applications for this job posting will be accepted until July 13, 2020.