{"id":3291556,"url":"https://alion.io/job/firstprinciples-physicist-theo-collaborators-program","title":"Physicist, Theo Collaborators Program","company":{"id":6477,"name":"FirstPrinciples","domain":"firstprinciples.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/firstprinciples","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":null},"role":"Science & Research","role_family":"Science & Research","seniority":null,"employment_type":"contractor","work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"inferred_company_offices","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"inferred","locations":[],"countries":[],"hiring_countries":["CA"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-01T08:46:20Z","employer_posted_date":null,"last_verified_at":"2026-10-01T08:46:20Z","board_verified":false,"closed_at":null,"days_open":30,"trust":{"level":"not_scored","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":30},"description":"Overview:FirstPrinciples is an independent, non-profit research organization building Theo, the AI Physicist - an autonomous scientific system designed to reason about fundamental physics from first principles. Our long-term vision is to accelerate deep scientific discovery by combining machine reasoning with human scientific judgment.\nAs part of this effort, we are launching the Theo Collaborators Program: a small, selective group of expert physicists who will work with us to validate, guide, and stress-test the scientific reasoning produced by the AI Physicist in a focused research domain. This is not a tool evaluation program, and it is not a traditional advisory role. Collaborators engage with a concrete scientific direction, help assess whether the system’s reasoning is sound, and contribute to shaping what “good AI-generated physics” should look like.\nThe Theo Collaborators Program is open to late-stage PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, early-career faculty, and industry researchers with strong theoretical backgrounds.\nWe operate as a global nonprofit organization, with a Canadian foundation, a US-based 501(c)(3).\nCurrent Scientific Focus (2026):For the initial phase, we are focused on Quantum Information Theory, with emphasis on narrow, formalizable sub-fields where rigorous reasoning and constraint-based results are possible.\nRepresentative areas include:\nStructural constraints in quantum LDPC codes\n\nTrade-offs between locality, rate, and distance in stabilizer codes\n\nNo-go or impossibility results under fault-tolerance assumptions\n\nInformation-theoretic bounds relevant to quantum error correction\n\nFundamental limitations of decoding or logical operations\n\nThe goal is depth over breadth: producing AI-assisted theoretical results that are technically coherent, non-trivial, and respectable to the physics community.\nWhat Theo Collaborators Do:Theo Collaborators engage at critical points in the research cycle:\nQuestion Validation & Framing\n\nReview candidate research questions generated by the AI Physicist’s Question Formulator (QF)\n\nHelp identify which questions are:\nscientifically meaningful;\n\ntractable;\n\nalready resolved in the literature; or\n\nill-posed.\n\nProvide feedback on assumptions, scope, and framing and help improve the Question Formulator module.\n\nShaping Question Ranking & Evaluation Criteria\n\nHelp us refine how questions are ranked by:\nnovelty;\n\ncomplexity;\n\noriginality;\n\ntractability; and\n\nscientific relevance\n\nContribute to defining what “interesting” and “non-trivial” should mean for the future autonomous scientific system.\n\nThis input directly informs how the AI Physicist prioritizes which questions to pursue deeply.\nScientific Validation of Research Outputs\n\nReview AI-generated research outputs (Dynamic Research Objects, or DROs) and assess whether they are:\ninternally consistent\n\nmathematically sound\n\nproperly grounded in the relevant literature; and\n\naligned with accepted physical principles and assumptions\n\nIdentify errors, gaps, or unclear reasoning, including points where assumptions are too strong, steps are missing, or conclusions are not adequately supported.\n\nIn addition, help us identify where the AI Physicist’s scientific workflow falls short, including:\nlimitations in hypothesis generation; \n\nmissing or inadequate evaluation criteria;\n\nweaknesses in symbolic manipulations or formal reasoning; or\n\nadditional modules and capabilities that would be required to make the reasoning more complete, rigorous, or reliable.\n\nThis feedback directly informs how we evolve the Theo’s architecture and helps ensure that its outputs meet the standards of serious theoretical physics.\nWhat is a DRO?The primary scientific output of the AI Physicist is a Dynamic Research Object (DRO).\nA DRO goes beyond a traditional paper and serves as a dynamic, traceable, and reproducible container that captures:\n\nthe research question;\n\nassumptions and representations;\n\nhypotheses considered;\n\nreasoning paths explored;\n\nevaluations performed; and\n\nfinal conclusions.\n\nDROs are designed to make the entire scientific workflow (including failed paths) auditable and understandable by humans.\nA core goal of the Theo Collaborators Program is to help ensure that these DROs are scientifically sound, coherent, and credible.\nWho This Is ForWe are looking for researchers who:\n\nWork in quantum information theory, QEC, or closely related areas.\n\nHave strong theoretical and mathematical grounding.\n\nAre curious, but appropriately skeptical, about AI-assisted research.\n\nValue rigor, clarity, and intellectual honesty.\n\nAre comfortable engaging with exploratory, incomplete results.\n\nTypical profiles include:\n\nLate-stage PhD students\n\nPostdoctoral researchers\n\nEarly-career faculty\n\nIndustry researchers with strong theoretical backgrounds\n\nTime Commitment & Compensation\n4 month engagement\n\nLight but focused commitment (~15 hours/month):\noccasional short calls\n\nasynchronous review and feedback (a few hours per month).\n\nCollaborators receive a modest honorarium, reflecting the value of their time and expertise.\nWhy Participate?Collaborators join to:\n\nEngage seriously with one of the first autonomous systems attempting real theoretical physics.\n\nHelp define how AI-generated scientific reasoning should be evaluated and trusted.\n\nContribute to the emergence of a new scientific research paradigm.\n\nInfluence the standards by which AI-assisted theory will be judged.\n\nHow to Express Interest:If this resonates, we welcome a brief expression of interest (no formal application required), including:\n\na short description of your research background;\n\nprimary areas of expertise; and\n\nrelevant recent work.\n\nJoin us at FirstPrinciples and be a part of a transformative journey where science drives progress and unlocks the potential of humanity.\nOriginally posted on Himalayas","description_format":"text","description_chars":5849,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"Canada","iso":"CA","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Artificial Intelligence","Game Design","AI Research Labs","AI for Science"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-26T19:52:56Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":44,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":0.6,"p_active":0.817,"p_room":0.9,"age_days":30,"expected_fill_days":77,"reasons":["seen:30","win:mid"],"computed_at":"2026-11-01T06:10:25Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/firstprinciples-physicist-theo-collaborators-program","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/firstprinciples-physicist-theo-collaborators-program.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-01T06:50:55Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":10606,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-02T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":6477},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=6477"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Ffirstprinciples-physicist-theo-collaborators-program"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Ffirstprinciples-physicist-theo-collaborators-program"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Ffirstprinciples-physicist-theo-collaborators-program"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/firstprinciples-physicist-theo-collaborators-program\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Ffirstprinciples-physicist-theo-collaborators-program"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3291556}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"firstprinciples.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3291556},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); 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