TL;DR: Recent progress in AI has tentatively shortened my expected timelines of human-level machine intelligence to something like 50% in the next 15 years. Conditional on that being a sensible timeline (feel free to disagree in the comments), how should that influence my career choice?
Context: I am currently a master student in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Amsterdam with one more year to go (mainly doing my master’s thesis). So far, my go-to plan was to apply for safety-relevant PhD positions, probably either in NN generalization or RL, and then try to become a research scientist in a safety-oriented org. Given the shorter timelines, I am now considering becoming an engineer instead since that seems to require much less upskilling time, compared to doing a PhD for 4-5 years. I think the answer to my question hinges upon
my personal fit for engineering vs. research
the marginal value of an engineer vs. researcher in the years directly preceding HLMI
the marginal value of an engineer now (i.e. a year from now) vs. a researcher in 5-6 years.
The reason I split these is that maybe the value changes significantly once HLMI is clearly on the horizon or already there in a number of relevant domains.
I feel like I enjoy research more than pure engineering, but it’s not like I don’t enjoy engineering at all. Engineering seems more competitive in terms of coding skills, which I might lack compared to the most skilled other applicants. However, that is something I could practice pretty straightforwardly.
How have other people thought about this question, and how would you judge the questions about marginal value of the two roles?
[Question] How should my timelines influence my career choice?
TL;DR: Recent progress in AI has tentatively shortened my expected timelines of human-level machine intelligence to something like 50% in the next 15 years. Conditional on that being a sensible timeline (feel free to disagree in the comments), how should that influence my career choice?
Context:
I am currently a master student in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Amsterdam with one more year to go (mainly doing my master’s thesis). So far, my go-to plan was to apply for safety-relevant PhD positions, probably either in NN generalization or RL, and then try to become a research scientist in a safety-oriented org. Given the shorter timelines, I am now considering becoming an engineer instead since that seems to require much less upskilling time, compared to doing a PhD for 4-5 years. I think the answer to my question hinges upon
my personal fit for engineering vs. research
the marginal value of an engineer vs. researcher in the years directly preceding HLMI
the marginal value of an engineer now (i.e. a year from now) vs. a researcher in 5-6 years.
The reason I split these is that maybe the value changes significantly once HLMI is clearly on the horizon or already there in a number of relevant domains.
I feel like I enjoy research more than pure engineering, but it’s not like I don’t enjoy engineering at all. Engineering seems more competitive in terms of coding skills, which I might lack compared to the most skilled other applicants. However, that is something I could practice pretty straightforwardly.
How have other people thought about this question, and how would you judge the questions about marginal value of the two roles?