Thanks for sharing your experience Emily! I think your experience is consistent with many of the colleagues I’ve been speaking with as I go through bluedot courses, CEA bootcamps etc. People are interested in learning more about AI safety, they want to gain context, but the pathways for generalists are not so clear or well developed. I’ve spoken to mid-career and senior level people who would love to contribute, but its hard for them to find entry points after the initial courses and fellowships. I expect that EA is missing out on some interested and committed people, who cant figure out how to navigate networks to find opportunities (or who give up after a year or two of trying).
I appreciate that EA and AI safety recruiting is done in a high-trust context, and there’s a premium placed on alignment and evidence like public writing. I also think that working or volunteering with EA / AI safety organisations is probably the fastest way for people to advance their understanding, once they’ve reached some baseline level.
Similar to the ‘freelancers for good’ idea, I wonder if there’s a way for recruiting organisations to ‘projectise’ some of their generalist work a bit more, as an opportunity for recruiting organisations to get some work done, but with a lower level of commitment required in case the recruit isnt a good fit. For example, recruit a short term comms person to develop a communications strategy and brand assets, recruit a short-term HR person to streamline recruitment processes and create banks of exam scenarios, recruit a short-term operations person to look at how systems can be streamlined, bring in a short-term legal person to review templates for legal agreements etc etc.
These are just examples, and different organisations will have different needs. But it seems to me that by opening up these kinds of short-term / lower-commitment roles for external candidates, it would help grow the EA / AI safety field, while helping interested people build their EA understanding. At the end of a short-term assignment, the recruiting organisation ideally has some useful product, the candidate has a new work product they can talk about, and both the organisation and the candidate would both have a clearer sense of whether the ‘fit’ was right for them.
Thanks for your thoughts here, Mark. I have the same sense that short-term contracted work offer a win-win scenario for those transitioning and for orgs. I imagine starting by interviewing people in hiring positions within orgs and getting a sense for what is preventing them from using freelancers would be very useful.
Thanks for sharing your experience Emily! I think your experience is consistent with many of the colleagues I’ve been speaking with as I go through bluedot courses, CEA bootcamps etc. People are interested in learning more about AI safety, they want to gain context, but the pathways for generalists are not so clear or well developed. I’ve spoken to mid-career and senior level people who would love to contribute, but its hard for them to find entry points after the initial courses and fellowships. I expect that EA is missing out on some interested and committed people, who cant figure out how to navigate networks to find opportunities (or who give up after a year or two of trying).
I appreciate that EA and AI safety recruiting is done in a high-trust context, and there’s a premium placed on alignment and evidence like public writing. I also think that working or volunteering with EA / AI safety organisations is probably the fastest way for people to advance their understanding, once they’ve reached some baseline level.
Similar to the ‘freelancers for good’ idea, I wonder if there’s a way for recruiting organisations to ‘projectise’ some of their generalist work a bit more, as an opportunity for recruiting organisations to get some work done, but with a lower level of commitment required in case the recruit isnt a good fit. For example, recruit a short term comms person to develop a communications strategy and brand assets, recruit a short-term HR person to streamline recruitment processes and create banks of exam scenarios, recruit a short-term operations person to look at how systems can be streamlined, bring in a short-term legal person to review templates for legal agreements etc etc.
These are just examples, and different organisations will have different needs. But it seems to me that by opening up these kinds of short-term / lower-commitment roles for external candidates, it would help grow the EA / AI safety field, while helping interested people build their EA understanding. At the end of a short-term assignment, the recruiting organisation ideally has some useful product, the candidate has a new work product they can talk about, and both the organisation and the candidate would both have a clearer sense of whether the ‘fit’ was right for them.
Thanks for your thoughts here, Mark. I have the same sense that short-term contracted work offer a win-win scenario for those transitioning and for orgs. I imagine starting by interviewing people in hiring positions within orgs and getting a sense for what is preventing them from using freelancers would be very useful.