I’m a high school dropout with my IQ in the low 120′s to 130. I want to do my part and build a safe AGI, but it will take 7 years to finish high school and a bachelor and master’s. I have no math or programming skills. What would you do in my situation? Should I forget about AGI and do what exactly?
If I work on a high school curriculum it doesn’t feel like I am getting closer to building an AGI, neither do I think working on a bachelor would either. I’m questioning if I really want to do AGI work or am capable of it, compared let’s say if my IQ was in the 140-160′s.
Honestly, the best contribution that the vast majority of people (even very smart like you or extremely smart like in the 140+) is to live the best life you can find and support more research through encouragement (now) and contributions (years from now when you’re established at something other than AGI-building).
If you limit yourself to direct work in the field, you greatly delay your success and seriously increase the risk that you won’t succeeed.
For almost all people, their comparative advantage won’t be in AI research, and they’d do more good doing whatever they’re best placed to do, and donating a portion of their income.
You don’t give enough detail for us to give specific suggestions, but unless you have extraordinarily compelling reasons to think that you were born to be an AI researcher, I wouldn’t recommend making major life changes for the sole purpose of maybe becoming a fairly average AI researcher in ~10 years.
I dropped out of high school, and was able to take a short, 3hr test to get a high school equivalent certificate from my state (the California High School Proficiency Test). I then went to community college and transferred to a 4-year university.
Some frank advice: if you “have no math or programming skills” then you don’t even know enough to know whether AI x-risk is even something worth working on. There is a ridiculous amount of biased literature available on the Internet, LW in particular, targeted towards those without strong backgrounds in computer science or AI. You may not be getting the whole story here. If this is what you feel you want to do, then I suggest taking the community college route and getting a comp sci degree from an inexpensive local university. You’ll be in a better position then to judge what you want to do.
Also, all forms of IQ measurement are worthless and without any value in this context. I would suggest doing your best to forget that number.
It sounds like you think that having a high school degree, a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree is a requirement for working on AI safety. That isn’t true Eliezer Yudkowsky for example has neither of those.
The government is willing to give me (stolen from taxpayers) around $1000/month in student welfare to finish my high school degree. And a student loan at ~1.5% interest of around $1000/month and ~$500 in welfare for university. However if I work part-time alongside finishing high school, it will pretty much be what I pay in taxes. ~50% tax on freelance, and 25% on goods I purchase in the store. But that means 60 h / week.
I don’t think I want to work in an unskilled labor job. If I was certain that my IQ was around 100 then I would… If I don’t go to school now I will have to learn on my own for 1-2 years web development to get a job that way to sustain building AGI.
I know Yudkowsky don’t, but how would you balance work-agi-life?
I would start learning CAD software, and try and get a job locally as a machinist. Then start learning some robotics, 3D printing, and at least some Python coding. Then head out to the Mojave Spaceport, and try and get a gig in the commercial space industry.
You’re young enough to maybe get a gig later in life as an on-orbit or lunar machinist and 3-D printer tech. Might as well be building the robots that the AI will be operating. That would be helping humanity’s future, and giving you a unique future to live in also.
I think that it’s very likely that the amount of information you provide about your present position is not enough to give you qualified advice.
I intuition suggest that spending ages 21 to 28 to get a high school diploma likely isn’t worth it but I don’t think I have enough information to tell you what you should do. One thing that might be valuable is to broaden your view and look at different possible paths and actually talk to different people at length in real life.
I’m a high school dropout with my IQ in the low 120′s to 130. I want to do my part and build a safe AGI, but it will take 7 years to finish high school and a bachelor and master’s. I have no math or programming skills. What would you do in my situation? Should I forget about AGI and do what exactly?
If I work on a high school curriculum it doesn’t feel like I am getting closer to building an AGI, neither do I think working on a bachelor would either. I’m questioning if I really want to do AGI work or am capable of it, compared let’s say if my IQ was in the 140-160′s.
Honestly, the best contribution that the vast majority of people (even very smart like you or extremely smart like in the 140+) is to live the best life you can find and support more research through encouragement (now) and contributions (years from now when you’re established at something other than AGI-building).
If you limit yourself to direct work in the field, you greatly delay your success and seriously increase the risk that you won’t succeeed.
For almost all people, their comparative advantage won’t be in AI research, and they’d do more good doing whatever they’re best placed to do, and donating a portion of their income.
You don’t give enough detail for us to give specific suggestions, but unless you have extraordinarily compelling reasons to think that you were born to be an AI researcher, I wouldn’t recommend making major life changes for the sole purpose of maybe becoming a fairly average AI researcher in ~10 years.
I dropped out of high school, and was able to take a short, 3hr test to get a high school equivalent certificate from my state (the California High School Proficiency Test). I then went to community college and transferred to a 4-year university.
Some frank advice: if you “have no math or programming skills” then you don’t even know enough to know whether AI x-risk is even something worth working on. There is a ridiculous amount of biased literature available on the Internet, LW in particular, targeted towards those without strong backgrounds in computer science or AI. You may not be getting the whole story here. If this is what you feel you want to do, then I suggest taking the community college route and getting a comp sci degree from an inexpensive local university. You’ll be in a better position then to judge what you want to do.
Also, all forms of IQ measurement are worthless and without any value in this context. I would suggest doing your best to forget that number.
What’s your age?
It sounds like you think that having a high school degree, a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree is a requirement for working on AI safety. That isn’t true Eliezer Yudkowsky for example has neither of those.
21-22.
The government is willing to give me (stolen from taxpayers) around $1000/month in student welfare to finish my high school degree. And a student loan at ~1.5% interest of around $1000/month and ~$500 in welfare for university. However if I work part-time alongside finishing high school, it will pretty much be what I pay in taxes. ~50% tax on freelance, and 25% on goods I purchase in the store. But that means 60 h / week.
I don’t think I want to work in an unskilled labor job. If I was certain that my IQ was around 100 then I would… If I don’t go to school now I will have to learn on my own for 1-2 years web development to get a job that way to sustain building AGI.
I know Yudkowsky don’t, but how would you balance work-agi-life?
If i were your age...
I would start learning CAD software, and try and get a job locally as a machinist. Then start learning some robotics, 3D printing, and at least some Python coding. Then head out to the Mojave Spaceport, and try and get a gig in the commercial space industry.
You’re young enough to maybe get a gig later in life as an on-orbit or lunar machinist and 3-D printer tech. Might as well be building the robots that the AI will be operating. That would be helping humanity’s future, and giving you a unique future to live in also.
I think that it’s very likely that the amount of information you provide about your present position is not enough to give you qualified advice.
I intuition suggest that spending ages 21 to 28 to get a high school diploma likely isn’t worth it but I don’t think I have enough information to tell you what you should do. One thing that might be valuable is to broaden your view and look at different possible paths and actually talk to different people at length in real life.