I’ve discussed this question with a good number of people, and I think I’ve generally found my pro-academia arguments to be stronger than their pro-industry arguments (I think probably many of them would agree?)
I… think we’ve discussed this? But I don’t agree, at least insofar as the arguments are supposed to apply to me as well (so e.g. not the personal fit part).
Some potential disagreements:
I expect more field growth via doing good research that exposes more surface area for people to tackle, rather than mentoring people directly. Partly this is because people can get mentorship comes from generic PhD programs, and because a lot of my research aims to be conceptual clarification of the field as a whole. That second reason may not apply to you.
I wouldn’t say “radical governance solutions” or “political activism” are “likely necessary” (though I wouldn’t say they are “likely unnecessary” either, it just seems pretty uncertain).
I didn’t notice you talking about early research being more impactful than later research, which seems like an important factor to the extent you think you’ll do better + faster research in industry relative to academia (as I do believe).
You mention “all the usual reasons for preferring industry”—I want to note that those seem like pretty strong reasons; idk how strong you think those are. (I’d also note salary in addition to the ones you mention—even altruistically, you can donate a much larger amount on a typical industry salary.)
Personally, I find the “bully pulpit” argument for academia most persuasive.
Btw, planned summary for the Alignment Newsletter:
This post and its comments discuss considerations that impact whether new PhD graduates interested in reducing AI x-risk should work in academia or industry.
Yeah we’ve definitely discussed it! Rereading what I wrote, I did not clearly communicate what I intended to...I wanted to say that “I think the average trend was for people to update in my direction”. I will edit it accordingly.
I think the strength of the “usual reasons” has a lot to do with personal fit and what kind of research one wants to do. Personally, I basically didn’t consider salary as a factor.
I… think we’ve discussed this? But I don’t agree, at least insofar as the arguments are supposed to apply to me as well (so e.g. not the personal fit part).
Some potential disagreements:
I expect more field growth via doing good research that exposes more surface area for people to tackle, rather than mentoring people directly. Partly this is because people can get mentorship comes from generic PhD programs, and because a lot of my research aims to be conceptual clarification of the field as a whole. That second reason may not apply to you.
I wouldn’t say “radical governance solutions” or “political activism” are “likely necessary” (though I wouldn’t say they are “likely unnecessary” either, it just seems pretty uncertain).
I didn’t notice you talking about early research being more impactful than later research, which seems like an important factor to the extent you think you’ll do better + faster research in industry relative to academia (as I do believe).
You mention “all the usual reasons for preferring industry”—I want to note that those seem like pretty strong reasons; idk how strong you think those are. (I’d also note salary in addition to the ones you mention—even altruistically, you can donate a much larger amount on a typical industry salary.)
Personally, I find the “bully pulpit” argument for academia most persuasive.
Btw, planned summary for the Alignment Newsletter:
Yeah we’ve definitely discussed it! Rereading what I wrote, I did not clearly communicate what I intended to...I wanted to say that “I think the average trend was for people to update in my direction”. I will edit it accordingly.
I think the strength of the “usual reasons” has a lot to do with personal fit and what kind of research one wants to do. Personally, I basically didn’t consider salary as a factor.