Counterfactually, if grad school is 5-10x the risk of independent research, it seems like you should be 5-10x as hesitant to fund grad students compared to independent researchers.
I don’t think that’s an accurate estimate of the relevant risk. I don’t think risk goes up linearly with time. Many people quit their PhDs when they aren’t a good fit.
Well when the LTFF funds graduate students who aren’t even directly focused on improving the long-term future, just to help them advance their careers, I think that sends a strong signal that the LTFF thinks grad school should be the default path.
I mean, I don’t think there is currently a great “default path” for doing work on the long-term future. I feel like we’ve said some things to that effect. I think grad school is a fine choice for some people, but I think we are funding many fewer people for grad school than we are funding them for independent research (there are some people who we are funding for an independent research project during grad school, but that really isn’t the same as funding someone for grad school), but would have to make a detailed count to be totally confident of this. Pretty confident this is true for my grant votes/recommendations.
I don’t think risk goes up linearly with time. Many people quit their PhDs when they aren’t a good fit.
Fair enough.
Maybe a pragmatic solution here is to emphasize to people who get a grant to do independent research that they can quit and give back the remainder of their grant at any time?
I don’t think that’s an accurate estimate of the relevant risk. I don’t think risk goes up linearly with time. Many people quit their PhDs when they aren’t a good fit.
I mean, I don’t think there is currently a great “default path” for doing work on the long-term future. I feel like we’ve said some things to that effect. I think grad school is a fine choice for some people, but I think we are funding many fewer people for grad school than we are funding them for independent research (there are some people who we are funding for an independent research project during grad school, but that really isn’t the same as funding someone for grad school), but would have to make a detailed count to be totally confident of this. Pretty confident this is true for my grant votes/recommendations.
Fair enough.
Maybe a pragmatic solution here is to emphasize to people who get a grant to do independent research that they can quit and give back the remainder of their grant at any time?
Yeah, I think we’ve done that a few times, but not confident. Would have to look over a bunch of records to be confident.