We currently reject about 75% of applicants to the Frontier AI Governance course. Most of them aren’t bad candidates - in our view they are applying to the wrong course.
This short blog post is intended to help you figure out if you should spend time on an application.
FAIGC is at its core about the governance of frontier AI systems - AGI, ASI - the most capable models being built by a handful of labs, the decisions governments and other actors need to make as those systems become more powerful, and what happens as general capabilities rapidly approach and exceed human-level.
If your guiding question is “how should we govern AI systems that might be smarter than humans within the next few years” you’re in the right place!
What FAIGC is not
It is not a corporate AI governance course
If your goal is ISO 42001 compliance, responsible AI frameworks for your product team, or helping your organization navigate the EU AI Act - that’s real work and we respect it, but it’s not what we focus on. You should look at something like IAPP’s AIGP certification or ISO 42001 programs instead.
It is not an AI ethics course
We don’t cover algorithmic bias in hiring tools, fairness metrics, or the full range of social impacts of current AI systems. If that’s your focus, you’re better served by something like this or this.
It is not introductory
We require the AGI Strategy course or some equivalent background. If you’re still building your understanding of why this matters, apply to the AGISC first. It too is free and runs every month!
What gets you in
It’s not (just) your CV - we’ve rejected plenty of people from prestigious institutions with impressive resumes who wrote three-word applications, and we’ve also accepted sharp people with more modest titles who showed they were already sprinting ahead.
What we’re looking for: you’ve already started engaging with frontier AI governance specifically. You can name a concrete gap between where you are and what the course provides. And your post-course plan better be more specific than “apply for fellowships” - a line we see in dozens of applications every round.
Your application itself is evidence for us too. We use it to infer how you’ll show up in a live discussion session of seven to nine people working through hard material together. Effort, agency and clarity go a long way.
A note for AGI Strategy course graduates
We view completing our AGI Strategy course as a prerequisite and not as a ticket! We may still reject AGI Strategy grads who apply. If you’ve completed the AGISC and then started building something, writing something, or working on something in frontier AI governance, tell us about that. But if you completed it and your main next step is taking this course, you may need more time.
As a general heuristic, before you apply, ask yourself these three things
Am I focused on frontier AI, or AI in general?
Do I have a specific reason to take this course now?
Will I act on this fully within six months?
We’re building a pipeline into the institutions that govern frontier AI and are looking for people who have a good chance to be in those institutions - not people adding a line to their CV.
If you’ve read this and you’re thinking yes, this is me - apply here.