Given a set of values, I see there as being multiple layers of heuristics, which are all useful to consider and make comparisons based on:
Yardsticks (e.g. x-risk, qualys)
Causes (e.g. AI alignment)
Interventions (e.g. research into the deployment problem)
Specific jobs /orgs (e.g. working at FHI)
Comparisons at all levels are all ultimately about finding proxies for expected value relative to your values.
The cause level abstraction seems to be especially useful for career planning (and grantmaking) since it helps you get career capital that builds up in a useful area. Intervention selection usually seems too brittle. Yardsticks are too broad. This post is pretty old but tries to give some more detail: https://80000hours.org/2013/12/why-pick-a-cause/
I think it’s probably the case that good heuristics for making career decisions are different than good heuristics for making donation decisions. We shouldn’t necessarily expect a framework (ITN or otherwise) to be ideal for both.
If someone today decides to work on a certain cause, they strengthen the pipeline of good funding opportunities in that cause. But there’s a time lag. Pivoting to work on biosecurity might be a great career decision right now. However funding a person to do that work might not be a great donation until a few years down the road, when they’ve gained the skills and credentials needed to make an impact.
Given a set of values, I see there as being multiple layers of heuristics, which are all useful to consider and make comparisons based on:
Yardsticks (e.g. x-risk, qualys)
Causes (e.g. AI alignment)
Interventions (e.g. research into the deployment problem)
Specific jobs /orgs (e.g. working at FHI)
Comparisons at all levels are all ultimately about finding proxies for expected value relative to your values.
The cause level abstraction seems to be especially useful for career planning (and grantmaking) since it helps you get career capital that builds up in a useful area. Intervention selection usually seems too brittle. Yardsticks are too broad. This post is pretty old but tries to give some more detail: https://80000hours.org/2013/12/why-pick-a-cause/
I think it’s probably the case that good heuristics for making career decisions are different than good heuristics for making donation decisions. We shouldn’t necessarily expect a framework (ITN or otherwise) to be ideal for both.
If someone today decides to work on a certain cause, they strengthen the pipeline of good funding opportunities in that cause. But there’s a time lag. Pivoting to work on biosecurity might be a great career decision right now. However funding a person to do that work might not be a great donation until a few years down the road, when they’ve gained the skills and credentials needed to make an impact.