I like this idea. Thinking about the following case was helpful for me:
Suppose for the sake of argument
I have two career options, Charity Worker or Search Engine Optimizer.
CW generates 5 utilons in direct impact, and 0 utilons via earning-to-give
SEO generates 0 utilons in direct impact, and 3 utilons via earning-to-give
There are plenty of people who don’t identify as EAs and/or don’t take Paul_Christiano’s certificate idea seriously, but who want to work as CWs.
From first glance it looks like the system would fail here—if I’m trying to maximize my certificates, and most other people in the market don’t care, then I’d choose CW and crowd-out somebody else.
But I think what would actually happen is that I’d choose the SEO option, earn a bunch of money and then say “hey, charity worker, over here on the internet there’s an apparently meaningless collection of numbers with your name at the top. I’ll give you $5 if you log in and change it to my name”. I’d end up with certificates valued at more utilons than if I’d just taken the CW option.
Even if a typical person didn’t view these certificates as valuable or meaningful initially, they’d start to once they heard about this mysterious community who was willing to pay money for them.
I like this idea. Thinking about the following case was helpful for me:
Suppose for the sake of argument
I have two career options, Charity Worker or Search Engine Optimizer.
CW generates 5 utilons in direct impact, and 0 utilons via earning-to-give
SEO generates 0 utilons in direct impact, and 3 utilons via earning-to-give
There are plenty of people who don’t identify as EAs and/or don’t take Paul_Christiano’s certificate idea seriously, but who want to work as CWs.
From first glance it looks like the system would fail here—if I’m trying to maximize my certificates, and most other people in the market don’t care, then I’d choose CW and crowd-out somebody else.
But I think what would actually happen is that I’d choose the SEO option, earn a bunch of money and then say “hey, charity worker, over here on the internet there’s an apparently meaningless collection of numbers with your name at the top. I’ll give you $5 if you log in and change it to my name”. I’d end up with certificates valued at more utilons than if I’d just taken the CW option.
Even if a typical person didn’t view these certificates as valuable or meaningful initially, they’d start to once they heard about this mysterious community who was willing to pay money for them.