This is indeed somewhat puzzling. I don’t know Neil Thompson’s work, but his google scholar profile isn’t that impressive (less than 2,000 citations, h-index 15), and his work on impacts of AI and computing (1) don’t seem all that relevant to AI safety or X risk, or (2) don’t seem to necessarily require $17 million in funding, insofar as the research seems to be mostly literature reviews, conceptual writing, and journal paper publishing.
If I was just writing thought pieces on the future of compute, $17 million would fund me for at least the next 70 years....
This is indeed somewhat puzzling. I don’t know Neil Thompson’s work, but his google scholar profile isn’t that impressive (less than 2,000 citations, h-index 15), and his work on impacts of AI and computing (1) don’t seem all that relevant to AI safety or X risk, or (2) don’t seem to necessarily require $17 million in funding, insofar as the research seems to be mostly literature reviews, conceptual writing, and journal paper publishing.
If I was just writing thought pieces on the future of compute, $17 million would fund me for at least the next 70 years....