I just wanted to thank you for writing this post and “Twenty-three AI alignment research project definitions”.
I have started a 2-year (coursework and thesis) Master’s and intend to use it to learn more maths and fundamentals, which has been going well so far. Other than that, I am in a very similar situation that you were in at the start of this journey, which makes me think that this post is especially useful for me.
BSc (Comp. Sci) only,
2 years professional experience in ordinary software development,
Interest in programming languages,
Trouble with “dawdling”.
The part of this post that I found most interesting is
Probably my biggest strategic mistake was to focus on producing results and trying to get hired from the beginning.
[8 months]
Perhaps trying to produce results by doing projects is fine. But then I should have done projects in one area and not jumped around the way I did.
I am currently “jumping around” to find a good area, where good means 1) Results in area X are useful, 2) Results in area X are achievable by me, given my interests, and the skills that I have or can reasonably develop.
However, this has encouraged me more to accept that while jumping around, I will not actually produce results, and so (given that I want results, for example for a successful Master’s) I should really try to find such a good area faster.
Sounds good! I wish you luck in finding a good area. And I suggest another criterion: ‘3) I enjoy working in area X.’ – It’s not strictly necessary. Some things you only start enjoying after you’ve been doing them for a while. But it certainly helps with the dawdling if you’re more eager to work on X than to dawdle.
By the way, I’ve added another clarification to the paragraph above: ‘Perhaps trying to produce results by doing projects is fine. But then I should have done projects in one area and not jumped around the way I did. This way I would have built experience upon experience, rather than starting from scratch everytime.’
Hi rmoehn,
I just wanted to thank you for writing this post and “Twenty-three AI alignment research project definitions”.
I have started a 2-year (coursework and thesis) Master’s and intend to use it to learn more maths and fundamentals, which has been going well so far. Other than that, I am in a very similar situation that you were in at the start of this journey, which makes me think that this post is especially useful for me.
BSc (Comp. Sci) only,
2 years professional experience in ordinary software development,
Interest in programming languages,
Trouble with “dawdling”.
The part of this post that I found most interesting is
I am currently “jumping around” to find a good area, where good means 1) Results in area X are useful, 2) Results in area X are achievable by me, given my interests, and the skills that I have or can reasonably develop.
However, this has encouraged me more to accept that while jumping around, I will not actually produce results, and so (given that I want results, for example for a successful Master’s) I should really try to find such a good area faster.
Sounds good! I wish you luck in finding a good area. And I suggest another criterion: ‘3) I enjoy working in area X.’ – It’s not strictly necessary. Some things you only start enjoying after you’ve been doing them for a while. But it certainly helps with the dawdling if you’re more eager to work on X than to dawdle.
By the way, I’ve added another clarification to the paragraph above: ‘Perhaps trying to produce results by doing projects is fine. But then I should have done projects in one area and not jumped around the way I did. This way I would have built experience upon experience, rather than starting from scratch everytime.’