I feel like the time sensitivity argument is a pretty big deal for me. I expect that even if the meta role does cause >1 additional person-equivilant doing direct work that might take at least a few years to happen. I think you should have a nontrivial discount rate for when the additional people start doing direct work in AI safety.
I’m not sure the onboarding delay is relevant here since it happens in either case?
One crude way to model this is to estimate: - discount rate for “1 additional AI Safety researcher” over time - rate of generating counterfactual AI Safety researchers per year by doing meta work
If I actually try to plug in numbers here the meta role seems better, although this doesn’t match my overall gut feeling.
The onboarding delay is relevant because in the 80k case it happens twice: the 80k person has an onboarding delay, and then the people they cause to get hired have onboarding delays too.
I feel like the time sensitivity argument is a pretty big deal for me. I expect that even if the meta role does cause >1 additional person-equivilant doing direct work that might take at least a few years to happen. I think you should have a nontrivial discount rate for when the additional people start doing direct work in AI safety.
I’m not sure the onboarding delay is relevant here since it happens in either case?
One crude way to model this is to estimate:
- discount rate for “1 additional AI Safety researcher” over time
- rate of generating counterfactual AI Safety researchers per year by doing meta work
If I actually try to plug in numbers here the meta role seems better, although this doesn’t match my overall gut feeling.
The onboarding delay is relevant because in the 80k case it happens twice: the 80k person has an onboarding delay, and then the people they cause to get hired have onboarding delays too.