Welcome to Sentient Futures Fellowships!

Last update: October 16, 2025

This document contains important information about the program structure and content.

Please review it before your first session.

If you have questions about the course, you can raise them during this session.

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You can also navigate using the table of contents (mouse over the lines on the right).

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Program

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Onboarding steps

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Format: what to expect

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How to get the most out of the fellowship?

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The fellowship team is here to help you

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Program

Find information about the structure of your fellowship program below.

AI×Animals

The AI×Animals Fellowship is 8 weeks in total, running from late October until mid-December:

The Wednesday 17:00 UTC group is a leading cohort. This group meets one week ahead of the others.

Planned sessions:

Week 1. Icebreaker and Fellowship Intro Week 2. AI×Animals: The Present and Near Future Week 3. Precision Livestock Farming Week 4. Interspecies Communication Week 5. A World Without Suffering? Advances in Genetic Welfare Week 6. AI×Animals: The Long-Term Future Week 7. Animal Advocacy in the Age of AI Risk Week 8. Taking Action: Career Planning

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We are planning a few optional elective sessions that cover related topics, featuring leading researchers and practitioners. We’ll announce these soon!

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Onboarding steps

• [ ] Confirm your participation: Please complete this short form to finalise your participation, contact details, and timeslot.
• [ ] Join our community: Join our Slack community to meet your peers and access program resources.
  • Make sure to set up your profile, including adding a professional profile picture!
  • If your Slack account is registered with a different email address, let us know.
• [ ] Say hello: Once you’re in Slack, head over to the #introductions channel and introduce yourself! Tell everyone your name, your background, and what you hope to achieve during the Fellowship. </aside>

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Format: what to expect

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You will meet for structured facilitated online discussions.

(1.5 hours per week)

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You will prepare for these sessions by completing readings and pre-session exercises.

(2-3 hours per week)

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To get the most out of our fellowships, we recommend setting aside at least 4 hours per week for synchronous sessions and preparation, including readings and exercises.

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How do the live sessions work?

You will meet with your group once a week for 1h30m with a 5m break in the middle.

• Meetings will be held on Google Meets.
• Please turn on your webcam – this creates a more lively and engaging experience for everybody.

📜 Handouts

All sessions will be structured around handouts in Google Docs which include prompts for discussions & activities (with timers to make sure we stay on track and cover everything).

Think of your group’s handout as a living document to assist your AI×Animals journey – the more resources & insights you share in it, the better!

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Make sure you bookmark your group’s session doc & have it open at the start of every session. Every week, new content will be added as tabs on the left side of the doc.

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✋ Participation etiquette

• Raising hands by default – but your group can agree on different norms as you get to know each other better.
• Be mindful of your mic and background noise. Mute when you are not speaking.
• Don’t be afraid to ask clarification questions – especially for basic concepts. This helps make sure everybody is on the same page, and it’s to good to practice explaining things to others.
• Have a low bar for asking others to repeat themselves – if you did not understand their point, it’s possible others didn’t as well.
• We encourage active participation – but also be aware of your speaking time.
• We want to create an inclusive learning environment where everyone feels comfortable participating.
• Please review our culture doc for further details.

🔴 Recording and AI notetakers

• To ensure that everybody feels comfortable participating in discussion, recording sessions is prohibited.
• If you would like to use an AI notetaker, you must obtain consent from everybody in attendance at the start of every meeting. Just a quick: “I’d like to use an AI notetaker today, is anyone not okay with that?”, should suffice!
• Please reach out to your facilitator if you have any concerns. </aside>

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