Research Assistant - Human Influence

About the AI Security Institute

The AI Security Institute is the world's largest and best-funded team dedicated to understanding advanced AI risks and translating that knowledge into action. We’re in the heart of the UK government with direct lines to No. 10 (the Prime Minister's office), and we work with frontier developers and governments globally.

We’re here because governments are critical for advanced AI going well, and UK AISI is uniquely positioned to mobilise them. With our resources, unique agility and international influence, this is the best place to shape both AI development and government action.

The deadline for applying to this role is Monday 1st June 2026, end of day, anywhere on Earth.

TeamDescription

The Human Influence team studies when, why, and how frontier AI systems influence human attitudes and behaviour. The team's mandate is to build a rigorous, world-class evidence base for the safe and responsible development of frontier AI. We measure the impacts of frontier AI systems on human users, to identify risks to human agency and wellbeing; and develop mitigation strategies. This includes research on persuasion, manipulation, deception, advice-giving, theory of mind, anthropomorphism, sycophancy, and socioaffective human–AI relationships.

Our team includes top technical talent from academia and frontier AI companies. Our projects combine methods from computational social science, AI safety and security, cognitive science, behavioural science, computer science, machine learning, and data science. Many of our projects involve conducting careful and rigorous human–AI interaction experiments and randomised controlled trials (RCTs).

On our team, you will have the:

• Ability to run large-scale RCTs
• Access to API credits for autograders/agentic workflows and large compute budgets
• Opportunity to work with world-class talent
• Opportunity to lead-author or co-author publications

As an example of our work, we recently completed the largest-ever study on the persuasive capabilities of conversational AI, a large-scale study on how people use and follow personal advice from AI chatbots and a longitudinal study on how anthropomorphic AI facilitates human-AI relationship building.

Role Description

Successful candidates will work with our Research Scientists to design and run studies that answer these important questions. The role is particularly suitable for candidates with an interest in pursuing a research career (e.g. recently graduated MSc students or early-stage PhD students). We encourage applications from candidates who are excited about this opportunity, but who may not meet all the stated criteria.

We are especially excited about candidates with experience in one or more of these areas:

• Computer science, machine learning, AI
• Computational social science
• Data science, especially including natural language processing
• Human–computer interaction
• Psychology
• Cognitive science

This is a full- or part-time, fixed-term contract (6-months) in London.

Required Skills and Experience

• Completed bachelor’s degree in a relevant field
• Knowledge about frontier models and how they are trained and evaluated
• Experience planning and conducting human experiments (ideally longitudinal and/or large-scale online studies)
• Strong coding skills (in Python and/or R)
• Strong knowledge of advanced statistical modelling methods (e.g. multilevel/hierarchical/mixed regression models)
• Strong verbal and written communication, experience working on a collaborative research team, and interpersonal skills
• Demonstrable interest in the societal impacts of AI

Desired Skills and Experience

• Published work related to societal impacts of AI, evaluation of AI systems, or relevant work in a related field
• Experience working on model or system evaluations and other AI safety projects
• Experience evaluating or training multimodal AI models
• Experience fine-tuning language models
• Experience with reinforcement learning (especially RLHF or reward modelling)
• Enrolled in an MSc/PhD (or equivalent years of industry experience) in AI safety, computer science, data science, social or political science, economics, cognitive science, criminology, security studies, or another relevant field
• Front-end software engineering skills to build UI for studies with human participants

Nationality and Eligibility

We may be able to offer roles to applicant fromany nationality or background. As such we encourage you to apply even if you do not meet the standard nationality requirements (opens in a new window).

Salary

In accordance with the salary figures below, this role has been specifically scoped at Level 3.

What We Offer

Impact you couldn't have anywhere else

• Incredibly talented, mission-driven and supportive colleagues.
• Direct influence on how frontier AI is governed and deployed globally.

• Work with the Prime Minister’s AI Advisor and leading AI companies.
• Opportunity to shape the first & best-resourced public-interest research team focused on AI security.

Resources & access

• Pre-release access to multiple frontier models and ample compute.
• Extensive operational support so you can focus on research and ship quickly.

• Work with experts across national security, policy, AI research and adjacent sciences.

Growth & autonomy

• If you’re talented and driven, you’ll own important problems early.
• 5 days off and annual stipends for learning and development, and funding for conferences and external collaborations.

• Freedom to pursue research bets without product pressure.
• Opportunities to publish and collaborate externally.

Life & family*

• Modern central London office (cafes, food court, gym), or where applicable, option to work in similar government offices in Birmingham, Cardiff, Darlington, Edinburgh, Salford or Bristol.
• Hybrid working, flexibility for occasional remote work abroad and stipends for work-from-home equipment.

• At least 25 days’ annual leave, 8 public holidays, extra team-wide breaks and 3 days off for volunteering.
• Generous paid parental leave (36 weeks of UK statutory leave shared between parents + 3 extra paid weeks + option for additional unpaid time).

• On top of your salary, we contribute 28.97% of your base salary to your pension.
• Discounts and benefits for cycling to work, donations and retail/gyms.
  

*These benefits apply to direct employees. Benefits may differ for individuals joining through other employment arrangements such as secondments.

Salary

Annual salary is benchmarked to role scope and relevant experience. Most offers land betwee