My thesis is the same research I intended to do anyway, so the thesis itself is not a waste of time at least.
The main reason I decided to do grad school, is that I want to attract more researchers to work on the learning-theoretic agenda, and I don’t want my candidate pool to be limited to the LW/EA-sphere. Most qualified candidates would be people on an academic career track. These people care about prestige, and many of them would be reluctant to e.g. work in an unknown research institute headed by an unknown person without even a PhD. If I secure an actual faculty position, I will also be able to direct grad students to do LTA research.
Other benefits include:
Opportunity for networking inside the academia (also useful for bringing in collaborators).
Safety net against EA-adjacent funding for agent foundations collapsing some time in the future.
Maybe getting some advice on better navigating the peer review system (important for building prestige in order to attract collaborators, and just increasing exposure to my research in general).
So far it’s not obvious whether it’s going to pay off, but I already paid the vast majority of the cost anyway (i.e. the time I wouldn’t have to spend if I just continued as independent).
My thesis is the same research I intended to do anyway, so the thesis itself is not a waste of time at least.
The main reason I decided to do grad school, is that I want to attract more researchers to work on the learning-theoretic agenda, and I don’t want my candidate pool to be limited to the LW/EA-sphere. Most qualified candidates would be people on an academic career track. These people care about prestige, and many of them would be reluctant to e.g. work in an unknown research institute headed by an unknown person without even a PhD. If I secure an actual faculty position, I will also be able to direct grad students to do LTA research.
Other benefits include:
Opportunity for networking inside the academia (also useful for bringing in collaborators).
Safety net against EA-adjacent funding for agent foundations collapsing some time in the future.
Maybe getting some advice on better navigating the peer review system (important for building prestige in order to attract collaborators, and just increasing exposure to my research in general).
So far it’s not obvious whether it’s going to pay off, but I already paid the vast majority of the cost anyway (i.e. the time I wouldn’t have to spend if I just continued as independent).