Facilitators lead 10-12 participants in structured discussions (following a provided template) on assigned readings. Facilitating is different from teaching: rather than convey your own knowledge, the goal is to help participants articulate their thoughts via a collaborative & active learning process.
Mentors supervise 1-4 participants during the project phase of the course, during which they create an original contribution to the field of AI & animal protection. This can be anything from research articles, policy memos/frameworks, surveys, technical demos, or more,
You can apply to be both a facilitator & a mentor.
✅Qualifications: Facilitating or mentoring is a great opportunity to develop your leadership & teaching skills, as well as to gain experience mediating & communicating across individuals of different backgrounds. Ideal candidates have significant interest or experience in AI & animal advocacy– but just as important is previous experience either facilitating, teaching, &/or mentoring.
Facilitators: Previous facilitation experience (e.g. with BlueDot Impact, EA Fellowships, or other courses) as well as teaching experience is a strong plus.
Mentors: We’re looking for more senior professionals across research, industry, policy, & related sectors. Mentoring is a chance to share your experience with the next generation of changemakers & maximise the success & impact of their projects & careers.
The fellowship will be for 12 weeks:
The immersion block (weeks 1–6) introduces participants to current and emerging AI applications with implications for animals, such as precision livestock farming, decoding animal communication, and AI-powered advocacy. The final session explores impactful career pathways at the AI/animals frontier.
The specialisation block (weeks 7–8) gives you the chance to go deeper in one of three tracks:
Builder — specialised classes on code and no-code tools, with practical implementations
Researcher — writing, policy design, and strategies for influence
Career-Developer — pathways for working with governments, NGOs, and industry actors
(Fellows will choose one track as their focus but may also audit classes across the other tracks. The facilitator might choose to lead one specific track.)
If you are unsure about your fit, we encourage you to apply anyway– just as our learners come from a variety of diverse backgrounds, so should our facilitators & mentors.
📆 Time frame & commitment
Facilitators: ~25 hours total per cohort from November to February (training, icebreaker, weekly prep/sessions)
Mentors: >10 hours total from January to February (weekly sessions + office hours)
Experienced facilitators/mentors may take on more than 1 cohort/several mentees. If you are unsure & would first like to participate in the Futurekind Fellowship as a learner, then we encourage you to apply by November 1.
Disclaimer: This blog post focuses on a new piece of research from Rethink Priorities. I was not involved with the funding or execution of this research, and therefore write this piece merely as a consumer. However, I am the Executive Director of Giving Green and a board member of Rethink Priorities, and acknowledge that these affiliations may bias my...
Epistemic status: Speculation from two decently informed advocates armed with anecdata.
Note on process: After having some version of this conversation several times and saying, “we should probably write about this publicly,” we took the less heroic route: we recorded one of our conversations, fed the transcript into an LLM, and then substantially revised the structure, substance, and framing ourselves. We will not be sharing the transcript, as it is in...
Michael Nielsen has a beautiful new essay on moral imagination: the ability humans have to 'develop and transmit new notions of good action, indeed, even new kinds of good'.
As examples, he gives:
* Hammurabi's creation of a code of laws (in 1754 BCE) and his justification of his rule not in terms of divine or hereditary right, but by the delivery of justice to his citizens.
* St Gregory of Nyssa's...
