Elaborating on this, thanks to Spencer Becker-Kahn for prompting me to think about this more:
From a standpoint of my values and what I think is good, I’m an EA. But doing intellectual work, specifically, takes more than just my moral values. I can’t work on problems I don’t think are cool. I mean, I have, and I did, during undergrad, but it was a huge relief to be done with it after I finished my quals and I have zero desire to go back to it. It would be—at minimum unsustainable—for me to try to work on a problem where my main motivation for doing it is “it would be morally good for me to solve this.” I struggle a bit with motivation at the best of times, or rather, on the best of problems. So, if I can find something in AI safety that I think is approximately as cool as what I’m currently doing, I’ll do it, but the coolness is actually a requirement, because I won’t be successful or happy otherwise. I’m not built for it (and I think most EAs aren’t; fortunately some of them have different tastes than I do, as to what is or isn’t cool).
I am not intellectually motivated by things on the basis of their impactfulness. If I were, I wouldn’t need to ask this question.
Elaborating on this, thanks to Spencer Becker-Kahn for prompting me to think about this more:
From a standpoint of my values and what I think is good, I’m an EA. But doing intellectual work, specifically, takes more than just my moral values. I can’t work on problems I don’t think are cool. I mean, I have, and I did, during undergrad, but it was a huge relief to be done with it after I finished my quals and I have zero desire to go back to it. It would be—at minimum unsustainable—for me to try to work on a problem where my main motivation for doing it is “it would be morally good for me to solve this.” I struggle a bit with motivation at the best of times, or rather, on the best of problems. So, if I can find something in AI safety that I think is approximately as cool as what I’m currently doing, I’ll do it, but the coolness is actually a requirement, because I won’t be successful or happy otherwise. I’m not built for it (and I think most EAs aren’t; fortunately some of them have different tastes than I do, as to what is or isn’t cool).