More of a skill set than a problem, but data science / machine learning would be my nomination. It’s one of the hottest fields for hiring right now, with computer science more generally being a top earning college major vs. lower earnings for fields like economics, mathematics, statistics, and physics. (See figures here: https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/which-college-graduates-make-the-most-11574267424.) It’s very mathematically challenging, especially at the highest levels of ML. It doesn’t necessarily have the same gamesmanship aspect as trading stocks of profits depending on winning or losing against another human being, but you are optimizing models and being rewarded for predictive accuracy. (You could also try Kaggle if you’re really looking for competition.)
Most importantly from an EA perspective, it’s good training for contributing to AI Safety, but also offers great impact opportunities for the right person even if they never work on AI Safety. This post and comment describe some of opportunities for having impact with AI beyond working on AI safety, including biomedical research and public health research (Post: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LHZBcqyCkYqmZLzij/?commentId=iea66e3TxsnFWbHoS#comments ).
Personally I studied economics and statistics before getting some work experience and realizing that CS and ML would be more useful across a broad range of roles. Maybe that’s my bias, but if you have math/STEM inclinations, I’d say you could do worse than learning some Python or majoring in CS.
More of a skill set than a problem, but data science / machine learning would be my nomination. It’s one of the hottest fields for hiring right now, with computer science more generally being a top earning college major vs. lower earnings for fields like economics, mathematics, statistics, and physics. (See figures here: https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/which-college-graduates-make-the-most-11574267424.) It’s very mathematically challenging, especially at the highest levels of ML. It doesn’t necessarily have the same gamesmanship aspect as trading stocks of profits depending on winning or losing against another human being, but you are optimizing models and being rewarded for predictive accuracy. (You could also try Kaggle if you’re really looking for competition.)
Most importantly from an EA perspective, it’s good training for contributing to AI Safety, but also offers great impact opportunities for the right person even if they never work on AI Safety. This post and comment describe some of opportunities for having impact with AI beyond working on AI safety, including biomedical research and public health research (Post: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LHZBcqyCkYqmZLzij/?commentId=iea66e3TxsnFWbHoS#comments ).
Personally I studied economics and statistics before getting some work experience and realizing that CS and ML would be more useful across a broad range of roles. Maybe that’s my bias, but if you have math/STEM inclinations, I’d say you could do worse than learning some Python or majoring in CS.