Aspiring EA from Netherlands (Indian by birth)
agent18
Karma: 162
I suppose I’m not directly answering your question, but I think it might be pretty hard to answer well, if you want to try to account for replaceability properly, because many people can end up in different positions because of you taking or not taking a job at an EA org, and it wouldn’t be easy to track them.
If one hasn’t taken into account replaceability, or the displacement chain, how do you know it is better to work in EA orgs rather than ETG (for X dollars).
Milan Griffes reports with a replaceability of 10% (guess) and attributing 60% (guess) contribution to the donor, that his impact was 244k. Now if you remove the replaceability it is 2.4m.
I doubt anyone has tried to. See this and my recent post.
And the 80khours article you cited on replaceability seems to be so off with its suggestions. 80khours are suggesting that “Often if you turn down a skilled job, the role simply won’t be filled at all because there’s no suitable substitute available”. Whilst the only evidence I can find says completely otherwise: Carricks take on AI S&P, Peter representing RC, Open Phil’s hiring round, Jon Behar’s comments, EAF’s hiring round.
As for your post, I saw it as well, and gained on the “displacement chain” verbiage and calculation. It was very difficult for me to follow the discussion on difference in priorities. In any case, I think we need atleast one real example to test a claim.
How are people so confident in saying that working at an EAO is better than doing ETG especially considering how “full” the talent pool is (Carricks take on AI S&P, Peter representing RC, Open Phil’s hiring round, Jon Behar’s comments)?
What is the evidence?
I mean, it’s kinda intertwined, right? Presumably you are earning to give to fund people to do stuff. So someone needs to do that stuff. That person could be you. Or you could be the one funding. I think it really comes down to comparative advantage / personal fit (how good are you personally at doing vs. earning?) and marginal resources (of the orgs you would donate to or work for, how much do they want a talented person versus more money?).
How do I do this Peter? I would think I need to start with what values of impact I can get with ETG and working at an EAorg? And based on the outcome I can choose to get better/pursue in ETG or GR-sills.
For example, if it turns out that 30k donation is enough to meet the EA org impact, then I would do an MS and get a job in the FAANG and 30k would be easy to donate. But if it turns out that working at GiveWell creates an impact of 200k as a GR, then I would rather spend the next few years doing focused practice on GR-skills as I know for that 200k in donations is going to be super hard unless I do something like trading (which I can’t). I would like to maximize my impact.
So I am looking for examples that show how people came to the conclusion that it is better to work in research in an EAO rather than ETG. These examples would include replaceability and other factors I think.
In short, I think getting general examples of people having a high impact by working in an EA org would be misleading for anyone actually making this kind of career path decision.
I don’t want general examples. I would like specific examples of impact of people in GR and management positions in Open Phil (and the like), AI safety (technical researcher) positions in OpenAI (and the like) etc...
AT WHAT ETG DO I BECOME INDIFFERENT TO WORKING IN EA ORGS (specifically GR, Safety strategy research and management positions)?
Very much appreciate the detailed response. I think you have answered both my questions. Very much appreciate the clear example. If there are only 100 jobs in EA per year, it seems unlikely to support 1000s in the way you have suggested (rate limited).
How does a “median EA” look?
he (the median EA) is within the 60-90th percentile (I am unsure of what, IQ?)
In the case with LW, he was able to talk about rationality and the “surrounding ecosystem”. If you can, I would really like an example for this?
P.S I am trying to judge if I could be a potential “median-EA”. Hence the questions.
Thanks.
[Question] Examples for impact of Working at EAorg instead of ETG
This is still a bit rate limited, and couldn’t handle an influx of thousands of people. But I think it can handle more than it currently does.
Why do you say it is rate limited and that it can handle more “median EAs” than it currently does? I hope you can give an example for this or perhaps quote your experience if you are up close to such events.
Thank You for your post. I have placed quotes on things that I am not sure I understand you correctly. Hence I seek an example.
I was wondering if you have one example for this “median EA” who got into an “early stage project” as a result of getting into the “EA network”. And can you also inform how the example-EA got into the “EA network”?
Hi Aaron, Can you also answer the following for me please?
So, in addition to hiring a candidate, I’ve also kept a record of the other applicants who most >impressed me, so that I can let them know if I hear about promising opportunities. I’ve already >referred a few candidates for different part-time roles at other EA orgs, and I anticipate more >chances to come.
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How many people “most impressed you”?
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How many people have you already referred for different part-time roles at other EA orgs?
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How many people do you think EA orgs are hiring in this job type currently or within the last year?
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How many people in your list who didn’t get hired, do you expect to get hired else where in EA orgs? (gut feel, guess, based on past experiences, anything)
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And maybe this is a bit much--> Do you have the distribution of where you got your candidates from? Here is an example from EAF’s hiring round
Thank you very much Aaron. Are you then able to inform the distribution of the scores for the interview (21 people) and the final work trail (8 people)? I understand they are subjective. Nevertheless they were a score on 10.
Nice Post Aaron! I have the following questions:
1. I was wondering if you can also provide the score ruberic and distribution for the interview rounds and the final work trial rounds?
2. Within what time frame did you receive the 180+ applications?
@Carrickflynn,
It’s been 3 years now. Is it possible to do a retake evaluating the current situation of the Disentanglement and if there has been growth in possibilities to work in AI strategy & policy (be in implementation or research)?
Thanks.
PDF link doesn’t exist anymore. @Peter_Hurford
Whoever downvoted this, would you care to inform me why? Is the data not accurate? Am I hating on 80k too much? what is it?
It appears you are extremely good in your field (16th out of 6000). A heart surgeon in the US has a median salary of 448k dollars. As much as 80k claims that being a doctor is pointless, Imagine the ETG as a result of this. This is close to avg expected salaries of top traders (600k dollars) in the game.
Peter please bear with me.
So it looks like you are suggesting that ALL DIRECT WORK (DW) any day is better than FAANG type of work, provided you get a job, EVEN if THE MARKET pool IS has many strong applicants. Is that correct?
I think I can focus on one, either on keeping FAANG open or on DW opportunities. I am 29, Indian by birth and working in Netherlands right now. The common route to a Big Bucks FAANG job (hence California), would require 50k$ in costs and a Master’s degree to get into the US. And I probably need to start masters in 1-2 years max, if I hope to be a FAANG guy in US (Guess, feeling). So prepping on this from “now” on would be option 1.
I don’t think I will make it to Direct work jobs now based on what I have seen. I would need to work intensely on it separately as well, depending on what type of job. This would be option 2 provided I know what to focus on. Focusing on option 1 and 2 I think will be hard at the same time I think in this case! Thoughts?
Direct work in what? Each seems to need its own separate prep: GR, AI safety tech researcher, Management positions
How do I compare different opportunities? It circles back again I think to calculations, examples of values.
On the other hand I could try to COPY YOU.
Get a Data Science Job in the US (by doing a Master’s maybe?)
Be REALLY GREAT at something! Have atleast a Triple Master Rank on Kaggle (for e.g.,) (2-3 years maybe)
Be involved with EA community (treasurer, research manager-->No idea how to get there though!)
Build relevant skills for direct work (Not sure what “relevant skills” mean)
And SOMEHOW IT WILL WORK OUT! (possibly because there is a lot of overlap between research, Data science?)
Can you give 2 examples of relevant skills you built for a particular direct work? And how you built it?
Wow. The Power of ETG at FAANG.