I have a question related to this post: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wX6maSvjHMyCHAoui/is-pursuing-high-gpa-aligned-with-training-ai-risks-research
jackchang110
Karma: 397
For people who disagreed him: Just disagree, don’t downvote. Every reply takes time and should be respected. I think downvote should only be used to posts/replies that are obvi usly not serious
[Question] Should I attend a worse college for better GPA in an EA perspective?
Hello Ariel: Thanks very much for your response, it’s very helpful.
However, for my situation it’s a bit different: If I double major in dentistry and CS(I’ll probably do them in different colleges, the below is just discussing on the CS part). I could choose a top college in Taiwan. However, in the top college I’d have to invest like much more time in order to get a top 10-20% GPA(like 3.8). In applying master in USA, it seems GPA matters much more than your college name(especially because they don’t know how big the difference of students intelligence is between the top-teir and mid-teir school in Taiwan.) Therefore, there’s a case for choosing mid-teir school in order to spend less time and maintain high GPA.
So the choice may be like: 1.spend 1000 hours extra on chasing GPA, and get a 3.2 GPA in a top-tier school 2.spend 1000 hours extra on chasing GPA, get a 3.8 GPA in a mid-tier school 3.spend 2000 hours extra on chasing GPA, get a 3.8 GPA in a top-tier school. It seems obvious that 1 is the worst for applying master degree in USA, so the choice is between 2 and 3, whether it’s worth investing like 1000 hours to improve your “college school name” on the resume. What do you think?
(And of course, there are still other advantages of choosing a top-tier school, like better peers and research environment.)
[Question] Is pursuing high GPA aligned with training AI risks research skills?
Hello Ariel
You’re right that E2G depends on cause area. However, I doubt the saying “AI safety isn’t funding constrainted”, as I see the funding bar is still really high.(and some aspiring AI safety researchers can’t get an EA job). It’s true that some org said they don’t need more money, but they could be too stingy on funding researchers. In the AI s-risks(suffering risks) field, it’s probably more funding constrainted than AI x-risks field. Because, if there are only 1 or 2 major donors in a field, there maybe blind spots of the donor and some great projects aren’t funded. As I know, there are very few indidvidual donors donating > $50000 annually now. In this case, small donors could fill the gap. Imagine if there’s a PR90 researcher unfunded, if you donate to him, your impact would be better than 90% of people in EA. I have a FB post on EA career discussion group to explain deeper of this idea:
People intersted in this topic can also read this: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/tMv3KWqcx5oFq27gN/the-contribution-of-average-direct-worker-in-ai-risks-may-be
Critique: There are not enough “realistic” topics in EA public discussion
IMO the fact is crazier, it’s “despite billions of funding, small donors still have a siginificant better marginal value of dontaing money than big donors”
[Question] How much money does it need for you to compensate that you have to die now?
Thanks for your answeing. I think there’s another category for your theory of change: 3.Doing important work that not enough people “can” do it well. And that’s more similar to 1. Another way to put it, how much $ do you think would it be worth for me to pay for a USA green card, if it can be bought?
It’s very impressive to donate 80%. For other EAs who are pursuing “earn to give” as a main strategy, I think it’s a model to learn with. Although the default is to donate 10%, but I think most EAs could aim for a higher value. However, there’s also a case for saving money. I think EAs could use “earn to give+save” as a metric, we can aim for “give+save 50% every year”
[Question] How important is it to immigrate to USA to impact on reducing AI risks?
[Question] How useful is hardware knowledge in AI s-risks research?
What I mean here is if you can give> $50000 a year, then it could be probable the contribution is better than direct work.
Of course, doing any small altruistic things is valuable and worth admiration(even only giving $1)
That’s partially true I think. However, some EA orgs aren’t funding constrainted at all, therefore they hire people that’s better than a certain bar, not hiring people in a limited number. In this, you get whole credit, because even if you decide not to work there, there won’t be another people hired
Thanks for your willingness to type down your critique. Your idea is basically: Maybe I can’t become a PR 90 researcher, but at least I probably could become PR 90 at something and collaborate with others and make impact.
But my critique is : Suppose you’re PR 90 at writing skills but average at every other things. Maybe you can apply for writing position in EA world, to help researchers publish better articles/papers. But it’s hard to get in EA world, if you work in non-EA world, it seems impossible to reduce AI s-risks if you’re only good at writing. You’ll still get a writing job in non-EA world, but what you’re going to write is probably not related to AI s-risks at all. It seems only people with the skill of research or policy can make impact for AI s-risks in the non-EA world(such as implementing safety designs). There’s in fact not that many skills that can make influences in the non-EA world, especially for s-risks
You probably won’t successfully build up skills and become capable enough.
I think you point out a good point: Some of the donators are too conservative of donating. I wonder if you have thoughts to this question: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/n76Hpb8N53JBeeWD4/resolving-paradox-funding-isn-t-bottleneck-vs-80-high
The part about “EA reinventing the wheel” is quite insipring, thanks for providing me this opinion.