So I don’t think people should feel discouraged just from their low offer rate very much.
To clarify, is your main point here that that AI safety orgs could absorb a lot more talent, if folks were more qualified? If so, that’s also my understanding. I doubt, however, that general university groups would be the optimal way to build qualified and motivated applicants, because student clubs inherently spend a lot of time on non-development focused activities. It seems like outsourcing the recruitment pipeline to, say, Cambridge’s AGI Safety Fundamentals program, GCP guides program, plus cross-university skill-building workshops would accomplish the majority of what a successful university AI safety club might accomplish, plus some, with a lot less organizer time.
Given that those programs aren’t fully built out, it might make sense for organizers to spend more of their time helping to build up those programs, rather than devote a ton of time to an AI club at their home university.
What’s the distinction between “community building” and “movement building”?
Good catch—I added “movement building” late last night and it’s way too vague. I meant it to encompass important things that recruiting doesn’t really touch on, like upskilling, but it is way too unspecific. I’ll add a note
Yup I think it would be helpful if more people seriously advertised the AGI Safety Fundamentals program or recommended the GCP Guides program (once that builds capacity to take on more people), if they don’t have time to run those programs locally or have more valuable things to do. Something else I would add to the pipeline is having students learn more about machine learning through courses, MOOCs, bootcamps, or research opportunities. People are more likely to get engaged by things that are local and in-person, but I think this gap between in-person vs virtual outsourced engagement can be minimized somewhat if you write the right marketing and still have some in-person activities, like weekly group lunches/dinners.
I’d be excited to see cross-university skill-building workshops. Do you have more details on what you’re envisioning here? What sorts of workshops do you think would be most useful? But it’s also possible that creating these isn’t in a student’s comparative advantage, especially if they aren’t already that knowledgeable about the skills they want to teach.
But it’s also possible that creating these isn’t in a student’s comparative advantage, especially if they aren’t already that knowledgeable about the skills they want to teach.
Right, this is what I suspect. It’s naturally more efficient to expand a pre-existing program than create a new one from scratch, especially in highly technical fields.
Do you have more details on what you’re envisioning here? What sorts of workshops do you think would be most useful?
I don’t have a great inside view on this, but the sorts of workshops Sydney has been running seem pretty popular (we had a couple USC fellows attend her “Impact Generator” workshop and they found it both helpful and motivating.) Lightcone in the Bay is doing a ton of that too, and GCP was planning to build out workshops after fine-tuning their Guides program.
To clarify, is your main point here that that AI safety orgs could absorb a lot more talent, if folks were more qualified? If so, that’s also my understanding. I doubt, however, that general university groups would be the optimal way to build qualified and motivated applicants, because student clubs inherently spend a lot of time on non-development focused activities. It seems like outsourcing the recruitment pipeline to, say, Cambridge’s AGI Safety Fundamentals program, GCP guides program, plus cross-university skill-building workshops would accomplish the majority of what a successful university AI safety club might accomplish, plus some, with a lot less organizer time.
Given that those programs aren’t fully built out, it might make sense for organizers to spend more of their time helping to build up those programs, rather than devote a ton of time to an AI club at their home university.
Good catch—I added “movement building” late last night and it’s way too vague. I meant it to encompass important things that recruiting doesn’t really touch on, like upskilling, but it is way too unspecific. I’ll add a note
Yup I think it would be helpful if more people seriously advertised the AGI Safety Fundamentals program or recommended the GCP Guides program (once that builds capacity to take on more people), if they don’t have time to run those programs locally or have more valuable things to do. Something else I would add to the pipeline is having students learn more about machine learning through courses, MOOCs, bootcamps, or research opportunities. People are more likely to get engaged by things that are local and in-person, but I think this gap between in-person vs virtual outsourced engagement can be minimized somewhat if you write the right marketing and still have some in-person activities, like weekly group lunches/dinners.
I’d be excited to see cross-university skill-building workshops. Do you have more details on what you’re envisioning here? What sorts of workshops do you think would be most useful? But it’s also possible that creating these isn’t in a student’s comparative advantage, especially if they aren’t already that knowledgeable about the skills they want to teach.
Right, this is what I suspect. It’s naturally more efficient to expand a pre-existing program than create a new one from scratch, especially in highly technical fields.
I don’t have a great inside view on this, but the sorts of workshops Sydney has been running seem pretty popular (we had a couple USC fellows attend her “Impact Generator” workshop and they found it both helpful and motivating.) Lightcone in the Bay is doing a ton of that too, and GCP was planning to build out workshops after fine-tuning their Guides program.