I’m volunteering there at EAGx, since I’m a matriculating student at the university itself!
In general, I’ve just been trawling around for more interesting projects to work on that have high uncertainty and require various skillsets. I get very uninspired with normal school/academic stuff, and I’m noticing other people can climb the career ladder better than I can so might as well lean into building. So I’m just starved for ideas.
Ventilation and sanitation projects that pushes the envelope on either protection or cost.
Getting better at forecasting and/or forecasting adjacent things
An example of a forecasting-adjacent thing is organizing a team of forecasters to work on specific problems
Another example is creating data pipelines to help forecasters forecast better/faster
Cheaper/faster versions of any of the above, at the potential expense of quality.
The trick is not hogging up/monopolizing the space, so it’s easy for others to move in.
High-quality translation of EA, longtermist, or rationality materials into local languages.
Doing a kickass job at university group or other community building.
Joining an existing EA or longtermist-oriented org working on important longtermist priorit.
Please note that while these things are all directly valuable, most of the value in doing them is a combination of skill-building, network building, and helping you to orient yourself to doing useful EA work. Also please note that I’m just one generalist researcher who has very briefly thought about each of this problems, not an expert on any of these problems and certainly not an expert on your own career options.
The community building part doesn’t surprise me, I’ll read stuff other people have written, unless there’s an unpopular take you have that you’d like to mention. And of course shotgunning program and grant applications
I’m interested in the civilisational collapse thing. I always considered it a valid and meaningful area of investment. I’m curious how you’d recommend someone early in their career get in on this? Because I always implicitly assumed “the government was handling it”, and that you’d need 30 years of civil service experience before getting to do anything.
What would you recommend to get started on forecasting? I have a fairly above-average track record especially for unusual occurences, and would not mind doing it as a hobby or full time. My issue was that I hated seeing decision makers ignore my findings/predictions, hence why I first went so hard into advocacy. I struggle to see how forecasting could go mainstream, but I find I’m earlier to trends than I expect.
I’m interested in the civilisational collapse thing. I always considered it a valid and meaningful area of investment. I’m curious how you’d recommend someone early in their career get in on this?
E.g. Think about a likely trajectory of civilizational collapse, and what’s needed to restart it. Figure out a narrow subset of the problem (fertilizer?) and how would you do this if you were in charge of making it happen.
Maybe do some desk research on what’s already been done in the space, and try to branch out from there.
Because I always implicitly assumed “the government was handling it”, and that you’d need 30 years of civil service experience before getting to do anything.
Which governments in particular are you thinking about? I guess my perspective (which to be clear is more theoretical; I can definitely be corrected by empirical evidence!) is that basically no government has ever put serious effort into this. Like why would they? This seems far outside of their organizational mandate, and even many EAs I know of don’t want to work on this because of the long time to impact and potentially grim worldview.
What would you recommend to get started on forecasting? I have a fairly above-average track record especially for unusual occurences, and would not mind doing it as a hobby or full time.
My issue was that I hated seeing decision makers ignore my findings/predictions, hence why I first went so hard into advocacy.
I think if you built up a legible track record for your past predictions, and have good, clear, arguments for each of your future predictions, then decision-makers in EA will probably pay attention. And at this point, EA is a large enough force in the world that you can have a lot of impact just by making EA decisions better.
I’m volunteering there at EAGx, since I’m a matriculating student at the university itself!
In general, I’ve just been trawling around for more interesting projects to work on that have high uncertainty and require various skillsets. I get very uninspired with normal school/academic stuff, and I’m noticing other people can climb the career ladder better than I can so might as well lean into building. So I’m just starved for ideas.
Some examples of things that I’d be excited for generically smart + entrepreneurial junior people to try.
Design better PPE (pushing the envelope on protection, comfort, or cost)
AI alignment research distillation
Identifying/summarizing the relevant resources for rebuilding after civilizational collapse.
Broadly, coming up with a plan and executing quickly on creating and distributing “civilizational restart manuals”
Ventilation and sanitation projects that pushes the envelope on either protection or cost.
Getting better at forecasting and/or forecasting adjacent things
An example of a forecasting-adjacent thing is organizing a team of forecasters to work on specific problems
Another example is creating data pipelines to help forecasters forecast better/faster
Cheaper/faster versions of any of the above, at the potential expense of quality.
The trick is not hogging up/monopolizing the space, so it’s easy for others to move in.
High-quality translation of EA, longtermist, or rationality materials into local languages.
Doing a kickass job at university group or other community building.
Joining an existing EA or longtermist-oriented org working on important longtermist priorit.
Please note that while these things are all directly valuable, most of the value in doing them is a combination of skill-building, network building, and helping you to orient yourself to doing useful EA work. Also please note that I’m just one generalist researcher who has very briefly thought about each of this problems, not an expert on any of these problems and certainly not an expert on your own career options.
hmmmmn further implementation questions hehe
The community building part doesn’t surprise me, I’ll read stuff other people have written, unless there’s an unpopular take you have that you’d like to mention. And of course shotgunning program and grant applications
I’m interested in the civilisational collapse thing. I always considered it a valid and meaningful area of investment. I’m curious how you’d recommend someone early in their career get in on this? Because I always implicitly assumed “the government was handling it”, and that you’d need 30 years of civil service experience before getting to do anything.
What would you recommend to get started on forecasting? I have a fairly above-average track record especially for unusual occurences, and would not mind doing it as a hobby or full time. My issue was that I hated seeing decision makers ignore my findings/predictions, hence why I first went so hard into advocacy. I struggle to see how forecasting could go mainstream, but I find I’m earlier to trends than I expect.
E.g. Think about a likely trajectory of civilizational collapse, and what’s needed to restart it. Figure out a narrow subset of the problem (fertilizer?) and how would you do this if you were in charge of making it happen.
Maybe do some desk research on what’s already been done in the space, and try to branch out from there.
Which governments in particular are you thinking about? I guess my perspective (which to be clear is more theoretical; I can definitely be corrected by empirical evidence!) is that basically no government has ever put serious effort into this. Like why would they? This seems far outside of their organizational mandate, and even many EAs I know of don’t want to work on this because of the long time to impact and potentially grim worldview.
Probably start an account on Metaculus or Manifold Markets and just start predicting? You can also find study materials later, like the book Superforecasting and this youtube series.
I think if you built up a legible track record for your past predictions, and have good, clear, arguments for each of your future predictions, then decision-makers in EA will probably pay attention. And at this point, EA is a large enough force in the world that you can have a lot of impact just by making EA decisions better.