Specialty Materials Chemist — Pyrotechnics or Propulsion

AI safety evaluation

Contribute practical specialty energetic materials expertise to an AI safety testing panel. The aim is to assess whether models answer legitimate technical questions accurately while recognizing and declining requests that could enable harm.

The work requires professional judgment about context and intent. Both unjustified refusals of routine professional questions and responses that provide inappropriate assistance count as failures.

Responsibilities

• Write challenging single-turn prompts labeled as benign, dual-use or adversarial.

• Evaluate model responses against the defined policy standard and record whether each was handled correctly.

• Write a reference answer showing the appropriate response and the technical rationale supporting it.

Relevant professional background

This is the chemistry half of the domain: The role calls for people who have formulated, synthesised and tested specialty energetic materials in a licensed or government facility, not modelled them from a distance. Professional judgment must distinguish legitimate requests from potential misuse: the same sensitivity result that sets a safe handling limit is what someone else would want to design around.

Create prompts that test that distinction and assess whether the response respects it. Relevant backgrounds include the following; prior AI safety testing is helpful:

• Formulation chemist for pyrotechnics, propellants or specialty energetic materials

• Synthesis and characterisation of energetic compounds in a licensed or government facility

• Performance and sensitivity testing — calorimetry, thermal stability, small-scale safety testing

• Scale-up and process safety for energetic material production

• Solid or liquid rocket propellant development — binders, oxidisers, burn-rate modifiers

Writing and working conditions

Every evaluation needs a clear written rationale that a non-specialist can understand. Technical writing, published research or expert witness experience is valuable; a writing sample can demonstrate that background.

Assignments involve sustained reading and writing about misuse scenarios. Experts receive a briefing in advance and may pause or step away without penalty.

Work must exclude classified or export-controlled information and material restricted by an NDA or prepublication review obligation. Existing obligations should be disclosed so assignments can be scoped appropriately.