For what it’s worth, I was barely able to do CS homework, but worked pretty successfully as a programmer for about a decade and still occasionally code for fun. Some (all?) universities have a remarkable ability to make the most interesting subjects monotonous, and I would be cautious in going from “I don’t want to read a CS textbook” to “CS is not for me”. (If you are directly reading AI safety research, and you have enough of the background to understand it yet still are bored by it, that seems like a stronger signal to me.)
Thanks! I hadn’t read that post, and it’s definitely related to what I’m thinking about.
I don’t have any real experience with AI research, so I won’t claim to know how interesting I would find that in particular. The thing that concerns me most is that as a kid I really enjoyed programming—and reading programming books—in a way I don’t anymore, even when I do it for fun.
I have a tough time getting immersed in it now. It’s hard to tell whether that’s from my interests shifting elsewhere, or me accumulating more responsibilities/worries/stressors, or if it’s just novelty wearing off.
You might be interested in the lottery of fascinations.
For what it’s worth, I was barely able to do CS homework, but worked pretty successfully as a programmer for about a decade and still occasionally code for fun. Some (all?) universities have a remarkable ability to make the most interesting subjects monotonous, and I would be cautious in going from “I don’t want to read a CS textbook” to “CS is not for me”. (If you are directly reading AI safety research, and you have enough of the background to understand it yet still are bored by it, that seems like a stronger signal to me.)
Thanks! I hadn’t read that post, and it’s definitely related to what I’m thinking about.
I don’t have any real experience with AI research, so I won’t claim to know how interesting I would find that in particular. The thing that concerns me most is that as a kid I really enjoyed programming—and reading programming books—in a way I don’t anymore, even when I do it for fun.
I have a tough time getting immersed in it now. It’s hard to tell whether that’s from my interests shifting elsewhere, or me accumulating more responsibilities/worries/stressors, or if it’s just novelty wearing off.