They’ve dome some small improvements that can be scaled upwards, such as having a trial stage where the top applicants effectively work as interns and then they see who is the best one to take on for the fellowship.
I think this can be scaled up further. Competent people can distinguish themselves for trial periods for internships, i.e. internship internships. The management problem is solved by having the successful interns manage the new interns, perhaps as yet another trial phase. The problem with that is that it nurtures extreme competitive spirit e.g. backstabbing and Goodhart’s Law, whereas with academia they just pick the people who already were at least capable enough to conquer a bunch of stupid walls, and are choosing EA work over more stable options.
The grant/contest system seems to be a great way to just sort people out of a big mess of randos at the bottom based on how good their ideas look. There’s no ladders where each successive rung incentivises you to bump off the other finalists in your cohort.
They’ve dome some small improvements that can be scaled upwards, such as having a trial stage where the top applicants effectively work as interns and then they see who is the best one to take on for the fellowship.
I think this can be scaled up further. Competent people can distinguish themselves for trial periods for internships, i.e. internship internships. The management problem is solved by having the successful interns manage the new interns, perhaps as yet another trial phase. The problem with that is that it nurtures extreme competitive spirit e.g. backstabbing and Goodhart’s Law, whereas with academia they just pick the people who already were at least capable enough to conquer a bunch of stupid walls, and are choosing EA work over more stable options.
The grant/contest system seems to be a great way to just sort people out of a big mess of randos at the bottom based on how good their ideas look. There’s no ladders where each successive rung incentivises you to bump off the other finalists in your cohort.