Essentially all of these numbers vary wildly across subfields, across countries, and on other assumptions like how prestigious the labs are that you’re considering. Judging based on numbers from physics, or from US PhDs overall, could leave you off by an order of magnitude or more. They also vary significantly over time.
The populations in PhD programs vary a lot from field to field as well, and how you fit relative to those populations will help tilt the odds. Being intrinsically motivated and a good English writer (the two things I can tell about the OP) could give you a pretty big leg up in your odds of finishing and getting a job relative to the median CS PhD student at a good US research university, at least assuming that you have the technical qualifications to be admitted. In a Philosophy program, by contrast, that’d be baked into the admissions criteria, and wouldn’t tell me much.
FWIW, here are some ballpark 80% confidence intervals based only on my recent experience. These are conditioned on what I know about the OP (AI safety area, good English writer, intrinsically motivated). I’m focusing on the US because that’s what I know, and I’m generally assuming top-50-or-so universities in CS, which is where you can be reasonably confident that you’ll have the resources and public platform to do high-impact research. I work in AI, but I don’t have much yet experience with AI safety. I have been involved in general admissions for two PhD programs with an AI focus, and two others.
P(admission to a good PhD program | serious effort at applying) = 1-15% without substantial prior research experience, 5-60% with limited research experience (at least one serious paper with a recognized collaborator, but nothing presented as a first author at a competitive venue) 50-90% with strong research experience (at least one paper with a recognized collaborator, presented as a first author at a competitive venue).
P(graduate within six years | enroll) = 70-95%
P(assistant professor job at a US top-100 research university directly after PhD | graduate within six years and apply) = 5-50% P(assistant professor job at a top-100 research university within three years after PhD | graduate within six years and apply) = 30-75% P(long-term US research job that supports publishing, academic or otherwise, within three years after PhD | graduate within six years and apply) = 85-95%
P(granted permanent tenure within nine years of starting as an assistant professor | make a serious attempt to stay) = 85%-98%
Academic here:
Essentially all of these numbers vary wildly across subfields, across countries, and on other assumptions like how prestigious the labs are that you’re considering. Judging based on numbers from physics, or from US PhDs overall, could leave you off by an order of magnitude or more. They also vary significantly over time.
The populations in PhD programs vary a lot from field to field as well, and how you fit relative to those populations will help tilt the odds. Being intrinsically motivated and a good English writer (the two things I can tell about the OP) could give you a pretty big leg up in your odds of finishing and getting a job relative to the median CS PhD student at a good US research university, at least assuming that you have the technical qualifications to be admitted. In a Philosophy program, by contrast, that’d be baked into the admissions criteria, and wouldn’t tell me much.
FWIW, here are some ballpark 80% confidence intervals based only on my recent experience. These are conditioned on what I know about the OP (AI safety area, good English writer, intrinsically motivated). I’m focusing on the US because that’s what I know, and I’m generally assuming top-50-or-so universities in CS, which is where you can be reasonably confident that you’ll have the resources and public platform to do high-impact research. I work in AI, but I don’t have much yet experience with AI safety. I have been involved in general admissions for two PhD programs with an AI focus, and two others.
P(admission to a good PhD program | serious effort at applying) =
1-15% without substantial prior research experience,
5-60% with limited research experience (at least one serious paper with a recognized collaborator, but nothing presented as a first author at a competitive venue)
50-90% with strong research experience (at least one paper with a recognized collaborator, presented as a first author at a competitive venue).
P(graduate within six years | enroll) = 70-95%
P(assistant professor job at a US top-100 research university directly after PhD | graduate within six years and apply) = 5-50%
P(assistant professor job at a top-100 research university within three years after PhD | graduate within six years and apply) = 30-75%
P(long-term US research job that supports publishing, academic or otherwise, within three years after PhD | graduate within six years and apply) = 85-95%
P(granted permanent tenure within nine years of starting as an assistant professor | make a serious attempt to stay) = 85%-98%