Depends! I think biosecurity and AI safety are both good technical fields to get into—and “getting into” them can either look like immediately trying to read up on the hard problems in the field, or it can look like spending many years building skills that you think will soon be needed by those fields (if you are a good ML engineer or good cell biologist, you can build general skills and wait around for someone going “help, I need some cell biologists to make this biosecurity project happen.”).
Sometimes getting into a field will involve going to grad school. I think that’s totally okay as long as you’re careful about keeping a fairly direct connection between what you want and what you’re going to school for. You don’t have to be a super-genius to get a PhD (though you still have to be pretty bright), nor does it mean you have to be the head honcho (lots of lucrative and interesting “grunt work” is done by people with PhDs—the aformentioned cell biologists often have PhDs, as do the people who run the big machines that make microchips).
Another option is just to try to make a lot of money and change the world by spending money. I am not the best person to ask about this, but I don’t think it’s nuts. People often choose careers while not thinking too hard about money, and so being just a little more strategic than average can lead to a large income increase.
Depends! I think biosecurity and AI safety are both good technical fields to get into—and “getting into” them can either look like immediately trying to read up on the hard problems in the field, or it can look like spending many years building skills that you think will soon be needed by those fields (if you are a good ML engineer or good cell biologist, you can build general skills and wait around for someone going “help, I need some cell biologists to make this biosecurity project happen.”).
Sometimes getting into a field will involve going to grad school. I think that’s totally okay as long as you’re careful about keeping a fairly direct connection between what you want and what you’re going to school for. You don’t have to be a super-genius to get a PhD (though you still have to be pretty bright), nor does it mean you have to be the head honcho (lots of lucrative and interesting “grunt work” is done by people with PhDs—the aformentioned cell biologists often have PhDs, as do the people who run the big machines that make microchips).
Another option is just to try to make a lot of money and change the world by spending money. I am not the best person to ask about this, but I don’t think it’s nuts. People often choose careers while not thinking too hard about money, and so being just a little more strategic than average can lead to a large income increase.