The point about checking back in every now and then is a good one; I had been thinking in more binary terms and it’s helpful to be reminded that “not yet, maybe later” is also a possible answer to whether to do AI safety research.
I like logic puzzles, and I like programming insofar as it’s like logic puzzles. I’m not particularly interested in e.g. economics or physics or philosophy. My preferred type of problem is very clear-cut and abstract, in the sense of being solvable without reference to how the real world works. More “is there an algorithm with time complexity Y that solves math problem X” than “is there a way to formalize real-world problem X into a math problem for which one might design an algorithm.” Unfortunately AI safety seems to be a lot of the latter!
The point about checking back in every now and then is a good one; I had been thinking in more binary terms and it’s helpful to be reminded that “not yet, maybe later” is also a possible answer to whether to do AI safety research.
I like logic puzzles, and I like programming insofar as it’s like logic puzzles. I’m not particularly interested in e.g. economics or physics or philosophy. My preferred type of problem is very clear-cut and abstract, in the sense of being solvable without reference to how the real world works. More “is there an algorithm with time complexity Y that solves math problem X” than “is there a way to formalize real-world problem X into a math problem for which one might design an algorithm.” Unfortunately AI safety seems to be a lot of the latter!