Thank you very much for this post! As you say, it’s great to have examples of how people think through their careers, what options they chose and why. Useful for others to learn from and also help each other feel less alone in making these hard decisions and going through the frustration of applications.
I’d be particularly interested in hearing more about why you don’t see cybersecurity and formal verification as promising: in particular whether your view is that EAs should be aiming to build up expertise in these, or whether you think they are useful skills for a number of EAs to have, it’s just that their use will come in the future (or in a country other than Israel).
Thanks for your comment Michelle!
If you have any other comments to make on my process (both positive and negative), I think that would be very valuable for me and for other readers as well.
Important Edit: Everything I wrote below refers only to technical cyber-security (and formal verification) roles.
I don’t have strong views on whether governance, advocacy or other types of work related to those fields could be impactful. My intuition is that these are indeed more promising than technical roles.
I don’t see any particularly important problem that can be addressed using cyber-security or formal verification (now or in the future), which is not already being addressed by the private or public sector.
Surely these areas are important for the world, and therefore are utilized and researched outside of EA.
For example, (too) many cyber-security companies provide solutions for other organizations (including critical organizations such as hospitals and electricity providers) to protect their data and computer systems. Another example is be governments using cyber-security tools for intelligence operations and surveillance. Both examples are obviously important, but not at all neglected.
One could argue that EA organizations need to protect their data and computer systems as well, which is definitely true, but can easily be solved by purchasing the appropriate products or hiring infosec officers, just like in any other organization.
Other than that I didn’t find any place where cyber-security can be meaningfully applied to assist EA goals.
As for formal verification, I believe that the case is similar—these kinds of tools are useful for certain (and very limited) problems in the software and hardware industry, but I am unaware of any interesting applications for EA causes.
One caveat is that I believe that it is plausible (but not very probable) that formal verification can be used for AI alignment, as I outlined in this comment.
My conclusion is that, right now, I wouldn’t recommended people in EA to build skills in any of these areas for the sake of having direct impact (of course cyber-security is a great industry for EtG).
To convince me otherwise, someone would have to come up with a reasonable suggestions where these tools could be applied.
If anyone has any such ideas (even rough ideas), I would love to hear them!
Thank you very much for this post! As you say, it’s great to have examples of how people think through their careers, what options they chose and why. Useful for others to learn from and also help each other feel less alone in making these hard decisions and going through the frustration of applications.
I’d be particularly interested in hearing more about why you don’t see cybersecurity and formal verification as promising: in particular whether your view is that EAs should be aiming to build up expertise in these, or whether you think they are useful skills for a number of EAs to have, it’s just that their use will come in the future (or in a country other than Israel).
Thanks for your comment Michelle! If you have any other comments to make on my process (both positive and negative), I think that would be very valuable for me and for other readers as well.
Important Edit: Everything I wrote below refers only to technical cyber-security (and formal verification) roles. I don’t have strong views on whether governance, advocacy or other types of work related to those fields could be impactful. My intuition is that these are indeed more promising than technical roles.
I don’t see any particularly important problem that can be addressed using cyber-security or formal verification (now or in the future), which is not already being addressed by the private or public sector. Surely these areas are important for the world, and therefore are utilized and researched outside of EA. For example, (too) many cyber-security companies provide solutions for other organizations (including critical organizations such as hospitals and electricity providers) to protect their data and computer systems. Another example is be governments using cyber-security tools for intelligence operations and surveillance. Both examples are obviously important, but not at all neglected.
One could argue that EA organizations need to protect their data and computer systems as well, which is definitely true, but can easily be solved by purchasing the appropriate products or hiring infosec officers, just like in any other organization. Other than that I didn’t find any place where cyber-security can be meaningfully applied to assist EA goals.
As for formal verification, I believe that the case is similar—these kinds of tools are useful for certain (and very limited) problems in the software and hardware industry, but I am unaware of any interesting applications for EA causes. One caveat is that I believe that it is plausible (but not very probable) that formal verification can be used for AI alignment, as I outlined in this comment.
My conclusion is that, right now, I wouldn’t recommended people in EA to build skills in any of these areas for the sake of having direct impact (of course cyber-security is a great industry for EtG). To convince me otherwise, someone would have to come up with a reasonable suggestions where these tools could be applied. If anyone has any such ideas (even rough ideas), I would love to hear them!