That’s really interesting and unexpected! Seems worth figuring out why that’s happening. What are your top hypotheses for why that’s happening?
My first guess would be epistemic humility norms.
My second would be that the first people in a field are often disproportionately talented compared to people coming in later. (Although you could also tell a story about how at the beginning it’s too socially weird so it can’t attract a lot of top talent).
My third is that since alignment is so hard, it’s easier for people to latch onto existing research agendas instead of creating new ones. At the beginning there were practically no agendas to latch onto, so people had to make new ones, but now there are a few, so most people just sort themselves into those.
That’s really interesting and unexpected! Seems worth figuring out why that’s happening. What are your top hypotheses for why that’s happening?
My first guess would be epistemic humility norms.
My second would be that the first people in a field are often disproportionately talented compared to people coming in later. (Although you could also tell a story about how at the beginning it’s too socially weird so it can’t attract a lot of top talent).
My third is that since alignment is so hard, it’s easier for people to latch onto existing research agendas instead of creating new ones. At the beginning there were practically no agendas to latch onto, so people had to make new ones, but now there are a few, so most people just sort themselves into those.