(Thanks for providing lots of details in the post. Standard disclaimer that you know the most about your strengths/weaknesses, likes/dislikes, core values, etc)
I recommend going for the job. It sounds like you have a uniquely good chance at getting it, and otherwise I’d assume it’d go to someone who wasn’t going to donate a lot of the salary.
After you get the job, I’d recommend thinking/reading/discussing a lot about the best way and time to give.
Regarding: > This may not be a claim that I would stand by upon reflection.
> my reason for making them is largely a deferral to people better informed on the subject than I
You say you’re not currently an expert, but I’d guess it wouldn’t take so long (100 hours, so maybe a few months of weekends) for you to become an expert in the specific questions that determine when and how you should donate. Questions like: - When will we develop superintelligence? - Given that we do, how likely are humans to stay in control? - Given that we stay in control, what would the economy look like? - Given that the future economy looks like [something], what’s the most impactful time and way to donate? - Wild guess that I haven’t thought about much: even if you’d be much richer in the future because the stock market will go up a lot, maybe it’s still better to donate all you can to AMF now. Reasoning: you can’t help someone in the future if they died of malaria before the AI makes the perfect malaria vaccine
Whatever your final beliefs are, having the high-paying job allows you to have a large impact.
It looks like the other path you’re considering is “mid to senior operations management roles at EA”. I would guess you could give enough money to EA orgs so they could hire enough ops people to do more work than you could have done directly (but maybe there’s some kind of EA ops work where you have a special hard-to-buy talent?)
(Thanks for providing lots of details in the post. Standard disclaimer that you know the most about your strengths/weaknesses, likes/dislikes, core values, etc)
I recommend going for the job. It sounds like you have a uniquely good chance at getting it, and otherwise I’d assume it’d go to someone who wasn’t going to donate a lot of the salary.
After you get the job, I’d recommend thinking/reading/discussing a lot about the best way and time to give.
Regarding:
> This may not be a claim that I would stand by upon reflection.
> my reason for making them is largely a deferral to people better informed on the subject than I
You say you’re not currently an expert, but I’d guess it wouldn’t take so long (100 hours, so maybe a few months of weekends) for you to become an expert in the specific questions that determine when and how you should donate. Questions like:
- When will we develop superintelligence?
- Given that we do, how likely are humans to stay in control?
- Given that we stay in control, what would the economy look like?
- Given that the future economy looks like [something], what’s the most impactful time and way to donate?
- Wild guess that I haven’t thought about much: even if you’d be much richer in the future because the stock market will go up a lot, maybe it’s still better to donate all you can to AMF now. Reasoning: you can’t help someone in the future if they died of malaria before the AI makes the perfect malaria vaccine
Whatever your final beliefs are, having the high-paying job allows you to have a large impact.
It looks like the other path you’re considering is “mid to senior operations management roles at EA”. I would guess you could give enough money to EA orgs so they could hire enough ops people to do more work than you could have done directly (but maybe there’s some kind of EA ops work where you have a special hard-to-buy talent?)