Hi. I’m also a PhD student (upcoming fourth year). Last year, I wrote about my process of auto didacting and switching research areas to directly work on FAI. Beyond that advice, I have more which is yet unpublished: select your committee wisely. I purposefully chose those professors who were easy to get along with and who seemed likely to be receptive to longer-term concerns.
I generally recommend working on an alignment research area in your free time, levelling up as necessary. One path I took: make some proposals and demonstrate you can think novel thoughts and do research. Then, get funding to make this your full-time research.
Thanks for your great story. I particularly enjoyed ‘Swimming Upstream’.
I’m much earlier in my journey and the milestones are probably different than yours. In Australia, a PhD is 3 years and I don’t know if you get much choice on committee selection. As it happens, I haven’t even started it yet as I am currently doing an Honours research project to prove my research bona fides.
My first challenge is to find a way to pay for my PhD. In Australia, you can get a salary to do a PhD, but it is 1⁄4 of my current salary and I have kids to feed. I have a plan to convince my company to pay for my PhD and a backup plan involving continuous part-time research to make a name and cover some important background over the next five years until my children are grown.
This year, my research is in Computer Vision. Next year if I can start my PhD, it will be in real—time scene interpretation. If I don’t start my PhD, I will have more freedom to choose my topic—so I want to make it a topic that serves my long-term interests.
Hi. I’m also a PhD student (upcoming fourth year). Last year, I wrote about my process of auto didacting and switching research areas to directly work on FAI. Beyond that advice, I have more which is yet unpublished: select your committee wisely. I purposefully chose those professors who were easy to get along with and who seemed likely to be receptive to longer-term concerns.
I generally recommend working on an alignment research area in your free time, levelling up as necessary. One path I took: make some proposals and demonstrate you can think novel thoughts and do research. Then, get funding to make this your full-time research.
Alternatively, you can just level up while in your program. Check out Critch’s Deliberate Grad School and Leveraging Academia.
If you’re interested in a Skype sometime, feel free to message me. There’s a MIRIx Discord server I can invite you to as well.
Welcome to the journey!
Thanks for your great story. I particularly enjoyed ‘Swimming Upstream’.
I’m much earlier in my journey and the milestones are probably different than yours. In Australia, a PhD is 3 years and I don’t know if you get much choice on committee selection. As it happens, I haven’t even started it yet as I am currently doing an Honours research project to prove my research bona fides.
My first challenge is to find a way to pay for my PhD. In Australia, you can get a salary to do a PhD, but it is 1⁄4 of my current salary and I have kids to feed. I have a plan to convince my company to pay for my PhD and a backup plan involving continuous part-time research to make a name and cover some important background over the next five years until my children are grown.
This year, my research is in Computer Vision. Next year if I can start my PhD, it will be in real—time scene interpretation. If I don’t start my PhD, I will have more freedom to choose my topic—so I want to make it a topic that serves my long-term interests.