Response on point 1: I didn’t mean to send a message that one should amass the most impressive conventional credentials possible in general—only that for many of these aptitudes, conventional success is an important early sign of fit and potential.
I’m generally pretty skeptical by default of advanced degrees unless one has high confidence that one wants to be on a track where the degree is necessary (I briefly give reasons for this skepticism in the “political and bureaucratic aptitudes” section). This piece only mentions advanced degrees for the “academia,” “conceptual and empirical research” and “political and bureaucratic” aptitudes. And for the latter two, these aren’t particularly recommended, more mentioned as possibilities.
More generally, I didn’t mean to advocate for “official credentials that anyone could recognize from the outside.” These do seem crucial for some aptitudes (particularly academia and political/bureaucratic), but much less so for other aptitudes I listed. For org running/building/boosting, I emphasized markers of success that are “conventional” (i.e., they’re not contrarian goals) but are also not maximally standardized or legible to people without context—e.g., raises, promotions, good relationships.
Response on point 2: this is interesting. I agree that when there is some highly neglected (often because “new”) situation, it’s possible to succeed with a lot less time invested. Crypto, COVID-19, and AI safety research of today all seem to fit that bill. This is a good point.
I’m less sure that this dynamic is going to be reliably correlated with the things that matter most by longtermist lights. When I picture “crunch time,” I imagine that generalists whose main asset is their “willingness to drop everything” will have opportunities to have impact, but I also imagine that (a) their opportunities will be better insofar as they’ve developed the sorts of aptitudes listed in this piece; (b) a lot of opportunities to have impact will really rely on having built aptitudes and/or career capital over the long run.
For example, I imagine there will be a lot of opportunities for (a) people who are high up in AI labs and government; (b) people who know how to run large projects/organizations; (c) people with large existing audiences and/or networks; (d) people who have spent many years working with large AI models; (e) people who have spent years developing rich conceptual and empirical understanding of major potential risk factors, and that these opportunities won’t exist for generalists.
“Drop everything and work hard” doesn’t particularly seem to me like the sort of thing one needs to get practice with (although it is the sort of thing one needs to be prepared for, i.e., one needs not to be too attached to their current job/community/etc.) So I guess overall I would think most people are getting “better prepared” by building the sorts of aptitudes described here than by “simulating crunch time early.” That said, jumping into areas with unusually “short climbs to the top” (like the examples you gave) could be an excellent move because of the opportunity to build outsized career capital and take on outsized responsibilities early in one’s career. And I’ll reiterate my reservations about “advice,” so wouldn’t ask you to defer to me here!
Thanks for the thoughtful comments, Linch.
Response on point 1: I didn’t mean to send a message that one should amass the most impressive conventional credentials possible in general—only that for many of these aptitudes, conventional success is an important early sign of fit and potential.
I’m generally pretty skeptical by default of advanced degrees unless one has high confidence that one wants to be on a track where the degree is necessary (I briefly give reasons for this skepticism in the “political and bureaucratic aptitudes” section). This piece only mentions advanced degrees for the “academia,” “conceptual and empirical research” and “political and bureaucratic” aptitudes. And for the latter two, these aren’t particularly recommended, more mentioned as possibilities.
More generally, I didn’t mean to advocate for “official credentials that anyone could recognize from the outside.” These do seem crucial for some aptitudes (particularly academia and political/bureaucratic), but much less so for other aptitudes I listed. For org running/building/boosting, I emphasized markers of success that are “conventional” (i.e., they’re not contrarian goals) but are also not maximally standardized or legible to people without context—e.g., raises, promotions, good relationships.
Response on point 2: this is interesting. I agree that when there is some highly neglected (often because “new”) situation, it’s possible to succeed with a lot less time invested. Crypto, COVID-19, and AI safety research of today all seem to fit that bill. This is a good point.
I’m less sure that this dynamic is going to be reliably correlated with the things that matter most by longtermist lights. When I picture “crunch time,” I imagine that generalists whose main asset is their “willingness to drop everything” will have opportunities to have impact, but I also imagine that (a) their opportunities will be better insofar as they’ve developed the sorts of aptitudes listed in this piece; (b) a lot of opportunities to have impact will really rely on having built aptitudes and/or career capital over the long run.
For example, I imagine there will be a lot of opportunities for (a) people who are high up in AI labs and government; (b) people who know how to run large projects/organizations; (c) people with large existing audiences and/or networks; (d) people who have spent many years working with large AI models; (e) people who have spent years developing rich conceptual and empirical understanding of major potential risk factors, and that these opportunities won’t exist for generalists.
“Drop everything and work hard” doesn’t particularly seem to me like the sort of thing one needs to get practice with (although it is the sort of thing one needs to be prepared for, i.e., one needs not to be too attached to their current job/community/etc.) So I guess overall I would think most people are getting “better prepared” by building the sorts of aptitudes described here than by “simulating crunch time early.” That said, jumping into areas with unusually “short climbs to the top” (like the examples you gave) could be an excellent move because of the opportunity to build outsized career capital and take on outsized responsibilities early in one’s career. And I’ll reiterate my reservations about “advice,” so wouldn’t ask you to defer to me here!