Three questions:
1: As a past MIRI researcher, which one of the technical problems in the technical research agenda currently looks like the biggest pain in the ass/the one requiring the most lead time to solve?
2: When you become executive director, will that displace all of your research work, or will you still have a few thought cycles left over to contribute mathematically to workshops/do some part-time research?
3: My current life plan is “speedrun college in 3 years (mostly done), speedrun employment by living in a van and spending under 14k/year so I can build up enough money to live off the interest for the rest of my life in 7 years or so, once financially independent devote life to solving biggest problem of the world in 7 years”.
Would you advise the path of “direct money towards financial independence, devote life to solving problem once financially independent”, or the path of “direct money towards X risk donations, slot direct work in as a hobby during the extended employment period” for a high percentile engineering student who can self-teach but is unsure of whether they are mathematically capable enough to meaningfully contribute? (Or some combination of the two)
I think they mean “what is the quantity of funding at MIRI which would cause a shift in the best marginal use of money, and what organization would it switch to.”
mhpage, if this is not what you mean, let me know.