Independant research and skills development

Software engineer seeking funding to skill up via AI safety accelerators and run independent research replicating Anthropic’s J-Space results, probing J-lens assumptions, and presenting findings at APAC conferences.

Project Details

I'm a software engineer currently working for Equistamp on short term AI safety contracts. I'm applying for AI safety accelerators (MATS🤞) to improve my skills with a goal of starting my own research organisation - however more financial freedom to improve my technical skills and work on independant research will allow me to transfer my focus to fieldbuilding.

I'm most inspired by the work EleosAI is doing with AI consciousness and am convinced it's a field that will grow in importance in the coming two years. I'm also excited by Anthropic's Global Workspace Theory paper ("J-Space") and have formed a small research collective to recreate the findings and explore one of the mathematical assumptions underlying the J-lens. If we are able to produce a mini-paper in the next four weeks, I would like to present that at upcoming conferences in the Asia-Pacific region.

Theory of Impact

I'm a good engineer and getting better, but I'm also a generalist who has the capability to scale up my impact by starting my own org. To do that I need a little more support for that to happen this year.

People

Miles Whiticker

Team Member

Funding Details

Start Date: Jul 1, 2026
End Date: Dec 26, 2026
Expected Duration: Five months
Funding Raised to Date: -
Annual Budget: -
Monthly Burn Rate: -
Current Runway: -
Funding Goal: -
Funding Stage: -
Fiscal Sponsor: -

Grants Received– no grants recorded

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Funding Asks

grantmaking.ai Launch Round

Funding for independant research and skills development

Applied

Minimum

$5,000

Ideal

$8,000

What this ask is

At present, I'm very excited by Anthropic's Global Workspace Theory paper ("J-Space") and have formed a small research collective to recreate the findings and explore one of the mathematical assumptions underlying the J-lens. If we are able to produce a mini-paper in the next four weeks, I would like to present that at upcoming conferences in the Asia-Pacific region.

How the money will be spent

I am asking between 2 and 5 months of expenses.

I am currently in Vietnam where I am be paying $300USD/monthly for accommodation and roughly $700USD/month in other expenses including transport, phone and food. This comes to roughly $1000USD per month.

The single largest outlays would be travel expenses to attend EAGxSingapore and/or EAGxAustralasia, where I am applying to present the results of my independant research (most likely in a 5 minute short talks format).

EAGxSingapore, total $700USD

Estimated flights: $400USD (Da Nang -> Changi return)
Estimated accommodation: $300USD (four nights)

EAGxAustralasia, total: $800USD

Estimated flight costs $800USD (Da Nang -> Melbourne return)
Estimated accommodation: $0USD (I will stay with friends)

Supporting me under this grant would also cover other outlays related to platform usage or skills development such as a Claude subscription, AWS services and compute. These are unlikely to exceed $100USD/month, and in the event they do I would seek separate a grant to support this.

If I am accepted into one of the accelerators I am applying for: MATS, ARENA, ML4Good, then that will change this budgeting (most likely downwards).

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