I’m a junior electrical engineering major who just learned about the advanced AI risks. I plan to do two senior years and a masters degree so I have time to change direction if I need to.
Do you think it would help the world more to go into one of the career paths in this article, or another career path one could do with an electrical engineering major that is less related to AI?
What are some of the career paths I could take with an electrical engineering major that have less risk of contributing to AI happening faster than we are able to handle it? Of those career paths, are there any that stand out as particularly helpful to society? I’m not interested in careers that require a PhD.
Thanks, so glad to see another engineer here! I’ll put down some rough ideas here, but if you’re interested in chatting sometime I’d be very happy to go into more detail, please feel free to reach out via DM!
I’m pretty uncertain about which of the paths listed has the potential to be the most effective (or that the most effective path is even on the list!). I would think that comparative advantage would play an important role here. I think Arden’s point is a very good one, that it’s important to be selective about what to work on. My (very inexperienced) intuition is that, to be very selective in many jobs related to computer hardware, one needs to really be a standout candidate, and to do that it probably has to be a topic that one finds really motivating.
If I had to make a bet on just one path independent of comparative advantage, I’d lean toward hardware security for AI. Part of this is that it touches many other paths (it seems like the type of area that’s forward-looking in AI hardware, and quite relevant to policy.). Another part is the point you brought up, this seems less likely to speed up timelines without increasing safety. I’m not really sure how having a masters vs. PhD would change any of this.
Thinking about other career paths less related to AI, if you’re interested more in the bio/materials side of EE, I’ve looked into atomically precise manufacturing a little bit (which was mentioned in this other post from 80000 Hours on the forum). It seems like a very interesting topic, but my impression was that (1) it’s not clear exactly what an EA should want to do in this space (though people are actively thinking about this!), and (2) if you want to go into this as an engineer you’d need to put a lot of work into building it up as a field.
Thanks so much! So helpful. I just connected with you on LinkedIn, but it wouldn’t let me include an introduction message for some reason, so here’s a reminder of how we met.
Thanks for this article! So helpful.
I’m a junior electrical engineering major who just learned about the advanced AI risks. I plan to do two senior years and a masters degree so I have time to change direction if I need to.
Do you think it would help the world more to go into one of the career paths in this article, or another career path one could do with an electrical engineering major that is less related to AI?
What are some of the career paths I could take with an electrical engineering major that have less risk of contributing to AI happening faster than we are able to handle it? Of those career paths, are there any that stand out as particularly helpful to society? I’m not interested in careers that require a PhD.
Thanks, so glad to see another engineer here! I’ll put down some rough ideas here, but if you’re interested in chatting sometime I’d be very happy to go into more detail, please feel free to reach out via DM!
I’m pretty uncertain about which of the paths listed has the potential to be the most effective (or that the most effective path is even on the list!). I would think that comparative advantage would play an important role here. I think Arden’s point is a very good one, that it’s important to be selective about what to work on. My (very inexperienced) intuition is that, to be very selective in many jobs related to computer hardware, one needs to really be a standout candidate, and to do that it probably has to be a topic that one finds really motivating.
If I had to make a bet on just one path independent of comparative advantage, I’d lean toward hardware security for AI. Part of this is that it touches many other paths (it seems like the type of area that’s forward-looking in AI hardware, and quite relevant to policy.). Another part is the point you brought up, this seems less likely to speed up timelines without increasing safety. I’m not really sure how having a masters vs. PhD would change any of this.
Thinking about other career paths less related to AI, if you’re interested more in the bio/materials side of EE, I’ve looked into atomically precise manufacturing a little bit (which was mentioned in this other post from 80000 Hours on the forum). It seems like a very interesting topic, but my impression was that (1) it’s not clear exactly what an EA should want to do in this space (though people are actively thinking about this!), and (2) if you want to go into this as an engineer you’d need to put a lot of work into building it up as a field.
Thanks so much! So helpful. I just connected with you on LinkedIn, but it wouldn’t let me include an introduction message for some reason, so here’s a reminder of how we met.