It’s not a snowball situation. You’ll be less and less behind over time, and eventually, you might get to 90% of the aptitude that you would’ve achieved. Which is fine, except for certain evaluations that happen n years after your PhD—it’s going to be extremely difficult to get on any pathway to professorship this way.
As for the issue of how to choose a direction, it’s useful to know that you’ve ruled out clinical activity, and are set on some kind of research. Not everyone would agree with you that interpretability will do much for the paramount risks from AI, but let’s take as given that interp is where you want to go. Then a neuroscience PhD that includes wetlab work is going to spend 3-6 years of your life only moving very slowly, and diagonally toward this destination. Comp neuro is not a great idea either, because it’s quite remote from your current experience in medicine. There are areas of research that are simultaneously closer to interp, and to medicine. Specifically, researching the interpretability of medical decision-making models, or AI used in medical devices. Basically this kind of stuff: (1) (2) (3). There are probably a dozen CS professors and medical professors who are especially strong at applying modern AI systems and interpretability to medical applications. Consider asking Claude exactly who those professors are. Why not read some of their work? You could try to replicate, or extend one of their studies, or look for an opportunity to do research assisting with one of them, or to study with them.
Thank you again—you’ve addressed the uncertainties that were concerning me the most.
I was maybe too focused on neuroscience—researching the interpretability of medical decision-making models, or AI used in medical devices, was completely off my radar. I will definitely look into this more and start searching for professors who work in this area.
It’s not a snowball situation. You’ll be less and less behind over time, and eventually, you might get to 90% of the aptitude that you would’ve achieved. Which is fine, except for certain evaluations that happen n years after your PhD—it’s going to be extremely difficult to get on any pathway to professorship this way.
As for the issue of how to choose a direction, it’s useful to know that you’ve ruled out clinical activity, and are set on some kind of research. Not everyone would agree with you that interpretability will do much for the paramount risks from AI, but let’s take as given that interp is where you want to go. Then a neuroscience PhD that includes wetlab work is going to spend 3-6 years of your life only moving very slowly, and diagonally toward this destination. Comp neuro is not a great idea either, because it’s quite remote from your current experience in medicine. There are areas of research that are simultaneously closer to interp, and to medicine. Specifically, researching the interpretability of medical decision-making models, or AI used in medical devices. Basically this kind of stuff: (1) (2) (3). There are probably a dozen CS professors and medical professors who are especially strong at applying modern AI systems and interpretability to medical applications. Consider asking Claude exactly who those professors are. Why not read some of their work? You could try to replicate, or extend one of their studies, or look for an opportunity to do research assisting with one of them, or to study with them.
Thank you again—you’ve addressed the uncertainties that were concerning me the most.
I was maybe too focused on neuroscience—researching the interpretability of medical decision-making models, or AI used in medical devices, was completely off my radar. I will definitely look into this more and start searching for professors who work in this area.