Interesting stuff! It’s definitely got me thinking about my own comparative advantage as well, especially since EA doesn’t have a typical distribution of talents. I’m a software engineer, and we’re vastly overrepresented in EA relative to the general population.
You make a great point about how organisations know the labor pool, and individuals don’t, and that info is needed to understand comparative advantage well. I suppose that would mean the right advice for individuals is ” Pay attention to the signals coming from the market.” For instance, I consider myself a better software engineer than a writer, but thus far when I apply for EA engineering jobs I haven’t had a ton of luck, and when I enter EA writing contests I win small prizes. So I wonder if this is a case where my comparative advantage might lie outside of engineering just because we already have a lot of strong engineering talent in a way that isn’t as true with writing.
Although perhaps even better would be to utilise the Pareto frontier where I have skills at both—e.g, skilling up in ML and then working to become a distiller of AI safety research, which requires both technical skill AND ability to write well.
It’s a difficult question! But the lesson I have definitely taken from this article is “Apply for things, pay attention to what happens.”
Besides distillation, another option to look into could be the Communications Specialist or Senior Communications Specialist contractor roles at the Fund for Alignment Research.
That’s an interesting example! It does seem like you having success with writing contests is meaningful evidence; the distillation thing does potentially seem promising.
Interesting stuff! It’s definitely got me thinking about my own comparative advantage as well, especially since EA doesn’t have a typical distribution of talents. I’m a software engineer, and we’re vastly overrepresented in EA relative to the general population.
You make a great point about how organisations know the labor pool, and individuals don’t, and that info is needed to understand comparative advantage well. I suppose that would mean the right advice for individuals is ” Pay attention to the signals coming from the market.” For instance, I consider myself a better software engineer than a writer, but thus far when I apply for EA engineering jobs I haven’t had a ton of luck, and when I enter EA writing contests I win small prizes. So I wonder if this is a case where my comparative advantage might lie outside of engineering just because we already have a lot of strong engineering talent in a way that isn’t as true with writing.
Although perhaps even better would be to utilise the Pareto frontier where I have skills at both—e.g, skilling up in ML and then working to become a distiller of AI safety research, which requires both technical skill AND ability to write well.
It’s a difficult question! But the lesson I have definitely taken from this article is “Apply for things, pay attention to what happens.”
Besides distillation, another option to look into could be the Communications Specialist or Senior Communications Specialist contractor roles at the Fund for Alignment Research.
That’s an interesting example! It does seem like you having success with writing contests is meaningful evidence; the distillation thing does potentially seem promising.