There currently seems to be an oversupply of alignment researchers relative to funding source’s willing to pay & orgs’ positions available. This suggests the wage of alignment work should/will fall until demand=supply.
Alignment work mostly looks like standard academic science in practice.
Young people in regular academia are paid a PhD stipend salary not a Bay Area programmer salary...
I anticipate higher, because the PhD gets a sweet certification at the end, and likely more career capital. A thing we don’t currently give alignment researchers, and which would be hard to give since they often believe the world will end very soon, reducing the value of skill building and certifications.
Like, I do think in fact ML PhDs get paid more than alignment researchers, accounting for these benefits.
There currently seems to be an oversupply of alignment researchers relative to funding source’s willing to pay & orgs’ positions available. This suggests the wage of alignment work should/will fall until demand=supply.
Alignment work mostly looks like standard academic science in practice. Young people in regular academia are paid a PhD stipend salary not a Bay Area programmer salary...
I anticipate higher, because the PhD gets a sweet certification at the end, and likely more career capital. A thing we don’t currently give alignment researchers, and which would be hard to give since they often believe the world will end very soon, reducing the value of skill building and certifications.
Like, I do think in fact ML PhDs get paid more than alignment researchers, accounting for these benefits.
Wages seem mostly orthogonal to why funding sources are/aren’t willing to pay as well as why orgs are willing to hire.
If demand is more inelastic than I expect, then this should mean prices will just go lower than I expect.