The AI×Animals future is in your hands. This final session distills all that we have learned over the past seven weeks into a concrete impact plan for you to carry forward after the fellowship. You will develop and receive targeted feedback on your project pitches and career strategies. Together, let’s build better AI futures for all sentient beings.

🧩 Central questions

  1. Major issues: Which specific challenges at the AI×Animals frontier are currently the most important, tractable, and neglected?
  2. Personal fit and synergy: How can individuals from diverse professional backgrounds (tech, policy, science, advocacy, etc.) uniquely leverage their existing expertise to advance positive AI-animal outcomes? What opportunities are there for high-impact transdisciplinary collaboration?
  3. Organizations: Who are the key organizations currently working on these high-stakes, high-leverage issues, and what defines their core strategy?
  4. Gaps and opportunities: Where are the most critical gaps and opportunities in this space?
  5. Resources: What are the most valuable informational resources, funding sources, connections, and events necessary to enter and succeed in this area?

🧭 Learning objectives

  1. Understand: Identify important, tractable, and neglected problems. Map the relevant ecosystem of organizations and stakeholders working on these issues, and pinpoint critical gaps and opportunities.
  2. Assess: Evaluate your own personal fit for working in this area through quick and easy tests for fitness. Identify areas of uncertainty and anticipate backfire risks.
  3. Reason: Apply evidence and principles to build a personalised post-fellowship impact plan (project pitch and/or career strategy).
  4. Next Steps: Execute the first steps of your impact plan. Establish strategic connections, explore leads, and learn more. Leverage the Sentient Futures Slack community for ongoing collaboration and support.

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Use the table of contents on the right to quickly navigate this page.

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Resources

Required readings

Further readings (optional)

Pre-session exercises

This week's exercises are designed to help you synthesize your learnings into actionable personal strategy – no matter where you are in your career.

Please complete both if you would like feedback on both your project proposal and career plan. Alternatively, you may choose to focus on either one or the other depending on which would be most useful for you to receive critical feedback on during our final session.

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The more detail you provide up front, the better feedback you will receive.

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At the same time, make sure you are able to communicate your ideas briefly and clearly to people who may not have thought about the issue as much as you!

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Pitch a project for the Sentient Futures Project Incubator Fellowship

[400 words] Translate your learning into impact in our upcoming Project Incubator Fellowship. Starting in January, you will have the chance to work with experienced mentors on impactful projects over the course of two months.

Topics can be anything related to nonhuman sentience and welfare, including (but not limited to):