Basically, I suspect that there are some fields where the “absorbency” could be artificially inflated in a way that might only have roughly net-neutral direct impact in the short term, but which could produce meaningful longer-term benefits by, e.g., improving the skills and application-competitiveness of people with shared values/goals in AI or similar fields.
Potentially also worth mentioning: the career capital benefits of working in some roles that themselves might not have a high degree of direct impact.
With that point in mind—combined with frustrations over the seemingly low degree of absorbency in the career paths I was interested in—I wrote this: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/HZacQkvLLeLKT3a6j/how-might-a-herd-of-interns-help-with-ai-or-biosecurity
Basically, I suspect that there are some fields where the “absorbency” could be artificially inflated in a way that might only have roughly net-neutral direct impact in the short term, but which could produce meaningful longer-term benefits by, e.g., improving the skills and application-competitiveness of people with shared values/goals in AI or similar fields.