Summary
Google DeepMind are looking for a talented Senior Psychologist or Sociologist to join the Responsible Development & Innovation team (ReDI) at their Mountain View office. This role sits at the heart of strategic decision-making, turning market data into actionable insights for a company that's revolutionising AI safety and ethics. You'll work directly with leadership to shape the company's direction in the AI and technology markets.
About the Role
As a Senior Psychologist or Sociologist within the Ethics Foresight team, you will be pivotal in ensuring our advanced AI models interact with people, in healthy and developmentally appropriate ways, consistent with Google DeepMind's values. You will use your intellectual agility and deep expertise in psychology and technical understanding of the AI model development pipeline to proactively identify, research and address potential ethical and well-being implications of our AI technologies. You will use this research to design model guardrails. This role demands someone capable of quickly grasping and contributing to diverse topics while possessing a strong foundational understanding of psychological principles, especially as they relate to human-computer interaction and AI safety.
Accountabilities
- Model Safety & Psychology Guidelines: Research and develop practical guidelines and implementable safety frameworks informed by general psychological principles (e.g., cognitive biases, well-being, mental health, developmental) and empirical data to define model behavior in ways that promote positive outcomes and mitigate potential psychological harms.
- Eval Design & Implementation:: Convert these frameworks into concrete evaluation protocols and red-teaming artifacts . Collaborate with model development teams to advise on safety fine-tuning, defining key metrics, designing prompt sets, and establishing criteria for significant results.
- Emerging AI Risks: Stay informed about the latest research and emerging trends in child psychology, developmental science, and the evolving landscape of Generative AI and its potential impact on young people.
- Risk Identification and Analysis: Proactively identify and research potential psychological risks and ethical considerations arising from interactions between advanced AI and children, drawing upon a combination of your expertise in child development, attachment theory, social-emotional learning, and related fields, as well as emerging AI capabilities.
- Technical & Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Work closely with AI researchers, ML engineers, and product managers across Google DeepMind to integrate psychological insights directly into the model training and deployment lifecycle.
- Literature Review and Expert Consultation: Conduct thorough reviews of relevant academic literature in psychology, education and technology, human-computer interaction, and AI ethics. Engage with internal and external experts to gather diverse perspectives and inform guideline development.
The Candidate we're looking for
Experience:
- A PhD in Psychology (Clinical, Developmental, Social, Cognitive), Human-Computer Interaction, Cognitive Science, or related fields.
Technical skills:
- Familiarity with the AI development lifecycle (e.g., training, fine-tuning, evaluation) and concepts such as Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF).
Personal attributes:
- Demonstrated ability to learn quickly and contribute effectively to technical discussions outside of core expertise.
Benefits
- Competitive salary and benefits package.
- Opportunity to work with a talented team of researchers and engineers.
- Access to cutting-edge AI technologies and research opportunities.
