Great post! I think once you’ve identified a pressing problem in the world, your highest goal should not be “get a full time job in that field.” It should be “get exceptionally good at the skills for solving the problem.” That’s what actually matters. Insofar as you care about (AI risk, animal suffering, global health, ___), you should see a job as one of many instrumental ways to get good at solving the problem, not “getting good enough” as instrumental to getting a job. Which one is your north star? It’s easier said than done, but getting so good they can’t ignore you is still underrated advice, and can help you shift your focus to more medium term skill building trajectories.
As you describe in the post, that can take many forms short of “full time capital E capital A work right away.” Here are some slides on this theme (and trying to concretize strategies) from a recent talk I gave if it’s helpful for anyone. And the 80,000 Hours career guide has many career capital tips.
And on AI timelines, people should probably think more seriously about opportunity costs when weighing between specific options, but I agree it shouldn’t be their only factor or close off longer term skill building priorities. We should maximize our impact across the distribution of plausible outcomes- if AGI comes tomorrow, I’m probably not in a position to help directly anyway.
Great post! I think once you’ve identified a pressing problem in the world, your highest goal should not be “get a full time job in that field.” It should be “get exceptionally good at the skills for solving the problem.” That’s what actually matters. Insofar as you care about (AI risk, animal suffering, global health, ___), you should see a job as one of many instrumental ways to get good at solving the problem, not “getting good enough” as instrumental to getting a job. Which one is your north star? It’s easier said than done, but getting so good they can’t ignore you is still underrated advice, and can help you shift your focus to more medium term skill building trajectories.
As you describe in the post, that can take many forms short of “full time capital E capital A work right away.” Here are some slides on this theme (and trying to concretize strategies) from a recent talk I gave if it’s helpful for anyone. And the 80,000 Hours career guide has many career capital tips.
And on AI timelines, people should probably think more seriously about opportunity costs when weighing between specific options, but I agree it shouldn’t be their only factor or close off longer term skill building priorities. We should maximize our impact across the distribution of plausible outcomes- if AGI comes tomorrow, I’m probably not in a position to help directly anyway.