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?
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?