Thanks for making the changes. I think they address most of my concerns. However I think splitting the AI safety organizations mentioned between academic and non-academic is suboptimal, because it seems like what’s most important is that someone who can contribute to AI safety go to an organization that can use them, whether that organization belongs to a university or not. On a pragmatic level, I’m worried that someone sees a list of organizations where they can contribute to AI safety, and not realize that there’s another list in a distant part of the article.
Do you know of any other projects or organizations that might be useful to mention?
Individual grants from various EA sources seem worth mentioning. I would also suggest mentioning FHI for AI safety research, not just global priorities research.
As for the comparison with journalism and AI policy, in line with what Will wrote below I was thinking of those as suggestions for people who are trying to get out of philosophy or who will be deciding not to go into it in the first place, i.e., for people who would be good at philosophy but who choose to do something else that takes advantage of their general strengths.
Ok, that wasn’t clear to me, as there’s nothing in the text that explicitly says those suggestions are for people who are trying to get out of philosophy. Instead the opening of that section says “If you want to leave academia”. I think you can address this as well as my “splitting” concern above by reorganizing the article into “careers inside philosophy” and “careers outside philosophy” instead of “careers inside academia” and “careers outside academia”. (But it’s just a suggestion as I’m sure you have other considerations for how to organize the article.)
Re: these being alternatives to philosophy, I see what you mean. But I think it’s ok to group together non-academic philosophy and non-philosophy alternatives since it’s a career review of philosophy academia. However, I take the point that I can better connect the two ‘alternatives’ sections in the article and have added a link.
As for individual grants, I’m hesitant to add that suggestion because I worry that that would encourage some people people who aren’t able to get philosophy roles in academia or in other organizations to go the ‘independent’ route, and I think that will rarely be the right choice.
As for individual grants, I’m hesitant to add that suggestion because I worry that that would encourage some people people who aren’t able to get philosophy roles in academia or in other organizations to go the ‘independent’ route, and I think that will rarely be the right choice.
I’m interested to hear why you think that. My own thinking is that a typical AI safety research organization may not currently be very willing to hire someone with mainly philosophy background, so they may have to first prove their value by doing some AI safety related independent research. After that they can either join a research org or continue down the ‘independent’ route if it seems suitable to them. Does this not seem like a good plan?
Thanks for making the changes. I think they address most of my concerns. However I think splitting the AI safety organizations mentioned between academic and non-academic is suboptimal, because it seems like what’s most important is that someone who can contribute to AI safety go to an organization that can use them, whether that organization belongs to a university or not. On a pragmatic level, I’m worried that someone sees a list of organizations where they can contribute to AI safety, and not realize that there’s another list in a distant part of the article.
Individual grants from various EA sources seem worth mentioning. I would also suggest mentioning FHI for AI safety research, not just global priorities research.
Ok, that wasn’t clear to me, as there’s nothing in the text that explicitly says those suggestions are for people who are trying to get out of philosophy. Instead the opening of that section says “If you want to leave academia”. I think you can address this as well as my “splitting” concern above by reorganizing the article into “careers inside philosophy” and “careers outside philosophy” instead of “careers inside academia” and “careers outside academia”. (But it’s just a suggestion as I’m sure you have other considerations for how to organize the article.)
Re: these being alternatives to philosophy, I see what you mean. But I think it’s ok to group together non-academic philosophy and non-philosophy alternatives since it’s a career review of philosophy academia. However, I take the point that I can better connect the two ‘alternatives’ sections in the article and have added a link.
As for individual grants, I’m hesitant to add that suggestion because I worry that that would encourage some people people who aren’t able to get philosophy roles in academia or in other organizations to go the ‘independent’ route, and I think that will rarely be the right choice.
I’m interested to hear why you think that. My own thinking is that a typical AI safety research organization may not currently be very willing to hire someone with mainly philosophy background, so they may have to first prove their value by doing some AI safety related independent research. After that they can either join a research org or continue down the ‘independent’ route if it seems suitable to them. Does this not seem like a good plan?