I find myself slightly confused—does 80k ever promote jobs they consider harmful (but ultimately worth it if the person goes on to leverage that career capital)?
My impression was that all career-capital building jobs were ~neutral or mildly positive. My stance on the 80k job board—that the set up is largely fine, though the perception of it needs shifting—would change significantly if 80k were listing jobs they thought were net negative if they didn’t expect the person to later take an even higher-impact role because of the net negative job.
One obvious example is working in AI companies, particularly companies directly aimed at building AGI. The jobs are default harmful, but it might be good for EAs to be the ones to work there (especially if they are careful/have good judgement and substantial moral courage). But the sign of the direct impact case is at best unclear. The career capital case is comparatively stronger however.
I agree AGI companies are a good example for where this question matters, and where the impact may not be ~neutral or mildly positive, and this is an important example.
I agree it might sometimes be worth working there for career capital, which isn’t negligible.
I don’t agree that it’s ok to send people there without telling them about this plan.
A “naive” example is an engineer working at a great company and building career capital, wanting to move to a company that has high impact, and unknowingly picking an AI org from the 80k job board that does harm, where 80k put the org there for career capital reasons.
Thanks. I did not mean to imply that working in AGI companies to build career capital is clearly good or even something that will come out to be net positive after (more informed) reflection. I find myself pretty confused about the sign, and know people who have strong arguments or beliefs in both directions.
I think it is kind of odd to say that the setup of the jobs board is fine but the perspective needs shifiting, as 80k are by far best positioned to change the perspective people have of the jobs board.
I am not confident that 80k are making a bad trade off here, the current setup may well be close to optimal given the tradeoffs (including the time tradeoff of bothering to optimise these things). But, I am a bit averse to attitudes of ‘it’s not this one orgs problem, everyone else needs to change’ when it seems more efficient to address issues at the source.
I find myself slightly confused—does 80k ever promote jobs they consider harmful (but ultimately worth it if the person goes on to leverage that career capital)?
My impression was that all career-capital building jobs were ~neutral or mildly positive. My stance on the 80k job board—that the set up is largely fine, though the perception of it needs shifting—would change significantly if 80k were listing jobs they thought were net negative if they didn’t expect the person to later take an even higher-impact role because of the net negative job.
One obvious example is working in AI companies, particularly companies directly aimed at building AGI. The jobs are default harmful, but it might be good for EAs to be the ones to work there (especially if they are careful/have good judgement and substantial moral courage). But the sign of the direct impact case is at best unclear. The career capital case is comparatively stronger however.
I agree AGI companies are a good example for where this question matters, and where the impact may not be ~neutral or mildly positive, and this is an important example.
I agree it might sometimes be worth working there for career capital, which isn’t negligible.
I don’t agree that it’s ok to send people there without telling them about this plan.
A “naive” example is an engineer working at a great company and building career capital, wanting to move to a company that has high impact, and unknowingly picking an AI org from the 80k job board that does harm, where 80k put the org there for career capital reasons.
Thanks. I did not mean to imply that working in AGI companies to build career capital is clearly good or even something that will come out to be net positive after (more informed) reflection. I find myself pretty confused about the sign, and know people who have strong arguments or beliefs in both directions.
I think it is kind of odd to say that the setup of the jobs board is fine but the perspective needs shifiting, as 80k are by far best positioned to change the perspective people have of the jobs board.
I am not confident that 80k are making a bad trade off here, the current setup may well be close to optimal given the tradeoffs (including the time tradeoff of bothering to optimise these things). But, I am a bit averse to attitudes of ‘it’s not this one orgs problem, everyone else needs to change’ when it seems more efficient to address issues at the source.
To clarify, I agree that 80k is the main actor who could + should change people’s perceptions of the job board!