I’m glad to see community building becoming more professionalized and CEA thinking more about how to support community builders.
I would like to hear your thoughts on what the potential downsides, risks or caveats could be for someone considering this path, or the work itself so that people seriously considering this opportunity can take those things into consideration
One set of caveats is that you might not be a good fit for this type of work (see what might make you a good fit above). For instance:
This is a role with a lot of autonomy, so if you prefer more externally set structure, this role probably isn’t a good fit for you
If you find talking to people about EA ideas difficult or uncomfortable, this may be a bad fit
You might be a good fit for doing field building, but prefer doing so with another age range (e.g. mid career, high school)
Some other things people considering this path might want to take into consideration:
If you would like to enter a non-EA career that is looking for traditional markers of prestige, is extremely competitive, and you have a current opportunity that won’t come around later, then being a campus specialist might be less good than directly entering that career or doing more signalling (although we think that the career capital from this route is better than most people think). This might be true for some specific post-undergrad awards in policy or unusual entrepreneurial opportunities—like having a co-founder with seed funding.
If you think it’s likely we’re in a particularly pivotal moment in the next 5-10 years – for example if you have extremely short AI timelines (with a median distribution of <5-10 years), then you might think that the benefits of doing outreach to talented individuals might not come to fruition. (But we think that this option can be good even for people with relatively short timelines—i.e. − 15-20 years.)
You might not feel compelled by the data in multiplier arguments, or you might think you’ll crowd out someone who would be better at generating multipliers compared to you.
I’m glad to see community building becoming more professionalized and CEA thinking more about how to support community builders.
I would like to hear your thoughts on what the potential downsides, risks or caveats could be for someone considering this path, or the work itself so that people seriously considering this opportunity can take those things into consideration
Thanks Vaidehi!
One set of caveats is that you might not be a good fit for this type of work (see what might make you a good fit above). For instance:
This is a role with a lot of autonomy, so if you prefer more externally set structure, this role probably isn’t a good fit for you
If you find talking to people about EA ideas difficult or uncomfortable, this may be a bad fit
You might be a good fit for doing field building, but prefer doing so with another age range (e.g. mid career, high school)
Some other things people considering this path might want to take into consideration:
If you would like to enter a non-EA career that is looking for traditional markers of prestige, is extremely competitive, and you have a current opportunity that won’t come around later, then being a campus specialist might be less good than directly entering that career or doing more signalling (although we think that the career capital from this route is better than most people think). This might be true for some specific post-undergrad awards in policy or unusual entrepreneurial opportunities—like having a co-founder with seed funding.
If you think it’s likely we’re in a particularly pivotal moment in the next 5-10 years – for example if you have extremely short AI timelines (with a median distribution of <5-10 years), then you might think that the benefits of doing outreach to talented individuals might not come to fruition. (But we think that this option can be good even for people with relatively short timelines—i.e. − 15-20 years.)
You might not feel compelled by the data in multiplier arguments, or you might think you’ll crowd out someone who would be better at generating multipliers compared to you.