I think more people should be studying statistics, machine learning, and data science, especially Bayesian methods and causal inference. Not only do these skills offer a chance to contribute to AI safety, they’re also critical for evaluating scientific papers (important for any field given the replication crisis), doing predictive modeling, and generally thinking in a data-driven and evidence-based way. Math is apparently 80k’s #1 recommendation, but when I was a student, I went to an event where math majors talked about their experiences in industry. Most of them said they didn’t use the math they learned much and they wish they had studied more statistics. So I would suggest applied math with a statistics emphasis.
I think more people should be studying statistics, machine learning, and data science, especially Bayesian methods and causal inference. Not only do these skills offer a chance to contribute to AI safety, they’re also critical for evaluating scientific papers (important for any field given the replication crisis), doing predictive modeling, and generally thinking in a data-driven and evidence-based way. Math is apparently 80k’s #1 recommendation, but when I was a student, I went to an event where math majors talked about their experiences in industry. Most of them said they didn’t use the math they learned much and they wish they had studied more statistics. So I would suggest applied math with a statistics emphasis.