I recently graduated from medical school but I’m worried that being a doctor in the rich world is not very impactful, because there are already lots of doctors and I can’t help that many people every year by providing primary care. Would 80,000 Hours say that this is a legitimate concern? What might they suggest for someone in my position?
The answer (one shot):
Yes, 80,000 Hours might consider your concern as legitimate. While being a doctor is a valuable and impactful profession, it’s true that in the rich world, there are already many doctors providing primary care. However, there are several ways you can increase your impact as a medical professional, and 80,000 Hours might suggest the following options:
Specialize in a high-impact area: Some medical specialties have a higher potential for impact than others. For example, you could specialize in infectious diseases, pandemic preparedness, or global health, areas where your expertise can make a considerable difference.
Global Health: Consider working in low-income or underserved regions where there is a more significant shortage of medical professionals. Your skills and expertise can have a more considerable impact in these areas.
Medical research: You could focus on research that addresses pressing global health issues, such as finding new treatments or improving existing ones for various diseases. Medical research can have a significant long-term impact on many lives.
Public health and policy: Engage in public health work, such as designing and implementing health programs or advocating for evidence-based policies. This can have a broader systemic impact on healthcare and health outcomes.
Effective altruism: Use your medical career to earn a good income, and then donate a significant portion of it to effective charities or causes. This approach is sometimes referred to as “earning to give.” By supporting high-impact organizations, you can indirectly contribute to addressing global problems.
Health-related advocacy: Use your medical expertise to raise awareness of important global health issues, advocate for policy changes, or support interventions that can have a large-scale impact.
It’s essential to consider your interests, strengths, and values when choosing a path. Remember that you can always change directions or pivot throughout your career. For more tailored advice, you can consult 80,000 Hours’ resources or engage with their community.
I didn’t give it any other text as context, just the prompt above.
Yeah, seems fair; asking LLMs to model specific orgs or people might achieve a similar effect without needing the contextual info, if there’s much info about those orgs or people in the training data and you don’t need it to represent specific ideas or info highlighted in a course’s core materials.
Back in March I asked GPT-4:
The answer (one shot):
I didn’t give it any other text as context, just the prompt above.
Yeah, seems fair; asking LLMs to model specific orgs or people might achieve a similar effect without needing the contextual info, if there’s much info about those orgs or people in the training data and you don’t need it to represent specific ideas or info highlighted in a course’s core materials.