So tell me, where does a German psychologist go nowadays to achieve the biggest possible positive impact in the field of friendly AI?
I was/am in a similar position as you are and I’ve come to the following, somewhat depressing conclusion:
Quit studying psychology, earn a lot of money, then donate to FAI-projects is the best you can do if you aren’t a math genius.
(I don’t follow my own advice because all fields related to money-making really turn me off. And because I’m a selfish hypocrite, of course.)
You also seem to overestimate the usefulness of academia in general. Most profs are driven by status, not by utilitarian ideals which makes it somewhat hard to pursue useful research.
If you really want to do the most good you can possible do, you should definitely read this article. ( Just replace “development aid” with “FAI”.)
I also have some slides from GivingWhatWeCan which I could send you per email.
Quit studying psychology, earn a lot of money, then donate to FAI-projects is the best you can do if you aren’t a math genius.
I’m really unsure why this is such a common conclusion. Maybe I’m overerestimating the bar for “math genius”, but there is some absurdly high amount of unexplored ground in areas relating to whole brain emulations and brain-computer interfaces. Neither of these are particularly math-heavy, and it’s likely that at there are parts of the problem that just require engineering or lab experience. My current estimate is that the more people working on WBE, the better. Also: the larger the fraction of the WBE community that cares about existential risks, the better.
(There’s also lots of unexplored ground in machine learning, but having people working on ML is probably less good than having people work on WBE, and also ML is significantly more math-intensive.)
On a separate note, I don’t think the people at SingInst, for instance, are so good at math that there is a vanishingly small probability of being better than them, even in fields where math is the determining factor (I don’t mean this as an attack on SingInst; the people from there that I’ve met all seem to be quite reasonable and capable people, for both qualitative and quantitative reasoning. But I don’t think that SingInst has been so optimized for math ability that no one else should even bother trying to contribute mathematically.)
I agree with this. Look at the list of SIAI’s publications—not all of them would have required a math genius to write.
I think that some of the most important papers relating to the Singularity so far have been (in no particular order) Eliezer’s CEV proposal, Omohundro’s Basic AI Drives, Robin Hanson’s If uploads come first, Carl Shulman’s Whole brain emulations and the evolution of superorganisms, Eliezer’s Artificial Intelligence as a Positive and Negative Factor in Global Risk, Anders Sandberg’s and Nick Bostrom’s Whole brain emulation roadmap, lukeprog and Louie Helm’s The Singularity and Machine Ethics, and the intelligence explosion paper that lukeprog and Anna Salamon are writing right now. I’d also like to imagine that my two draft papers might have some value. None of those would have required a math genius for a writer—in fact, the WBE roadmap is probably the only one that required any math knowledge at all. Of possible future directions, many of the Singularity and Machine Ethics proposals can be done without being a math genius as well.
Then there are various other useful paths that are less directly associated with research. Popular writing (the career path that I’m thinking about concentrating on) might inspire countless of people to pursue FAI-related pursuits if done well. (Or turn them away from it, if done badly.)
Note that the “it’s better to earn money to fund others to do research” presumption assumes that there are people who can be hired to do research. If everyone who’s interested in FAI/Singularity issues and isn’t a math genius decides to just earn money instead, that means that the only people who can be hired to do work on FAI/Singularity issues are either math geniuses or folks who’d rather be doing something else but agree to do this because it pays the bills. It’d be better to have math geniuses and genuinely motivated folks who were ready to do the tasks that weren’t the math geniuses’ comparative advantage.
You also seem to overestimate the usefulness of academia in general. Most profs are driven by status, not by utilitarian ideals which makes it somewhat hard to pursue useful research.
Academia has many worthwhile resources. Giant libraries, laboratory funds, political/industrial connections, lawyers, and etc. The existence of status-driven professors does not make useful research impossible (or even difficult, really) to pursue.
Quitting psychology is not an option I’m afraid. Apart from science and rationality, the human mind is the only topic that ever constantly held my interest. Absolutely everything else seems to bore me to shits in no time, because my mind constantly focuses on what it feels to be “important” and my interest nearly hits ground zero as soon as I discover the relative direct unimportance of certain topics on my personal life.
I also have the same problem as you when it comes to making money: Not only do most ways to make some real money feel like a disgrace, I would probably also be slowly dying inside by doing something I hate.
There are however some ways to make some decent cash as a psychologist if you play your cards right… the title of “Dr.Happy” currently belongs to an Australian doctor, but that could be expected to change in a decade from now.
Rationality may also be something you could build a “pop-science-career” on, if the demand for it increases over time. Some rationality is better than none and raising the sanity-waterline probably wouldn’t hurt the future prospects of humanity either. (Not that I would intend to do second-class work in such a field as rationality-education, but since we’re still talking money, pop-science is where it’s at if I stick to psychology.)
There is a lot of useful work that can be done in psychology, largely because it currently is so full of bogus “theories”. You might find this post and web site useful, Theory and Why It’s Time Psychology Got One. Note that I don’t agree with a lot of what the embodied/ecological psychology school is doing, but it gives an interesting perspective on the neuropsych and cognitive schools mostly posted here.
Ah, I see, we are on the same page regarding money...
I also think that raising the sanity-waterline is a quite effective strategy.
You describe yourself as an extrovert and say that you like writing. Maybe a “pop-science-career” is really the right path for you.
You also seem to overestimate the usefulness of academia in general.
Even if 99.9% of academia is useless, getting 0.1% of it to contribute usefully to FAI research (by e.g. publishing quality papers on related topics and attracting interest) would be immense.
You’re right. The point I wanted to make is that especially in the field of psychology ( and especially in Germany) most people don’t work on anything interesting at all. In order to secure an academic position you have to suck up to your superiors and work for a substantial amount of time at their projects. And even after getting tenure you have to apply for grants and only get enough money if your research is accepted by the mainstream.
You are correct about the state of German science-affairs, which is why I might be willing to move to the US if that was needed to pursue my career—although I don’t know how different the grant-grabbing structure for psychology really is in America. That country is a disgrace on so many levels nowadays that it really would be a hard call for me to move there, but it still gets the most and best science in psychology (and I think also in general) done. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that I could pursue many psychology-paths there that simply wouldn’t be available to me in Germany.
I was/am in a similar position as you are and I’ve come to the following, somewhat depressing conclusion: Quit studying psychology, earn a lot of money, then donate to FAI-projects is the best you can do if you aren’t a math genius. (I don’t follow my own advice because all fields related to money-making really turn me off. And because I’m a selfish hypocrite, of course.)
You also seem to overestimate the usefulness of academia in general. Most profs are driven by status, not by utilitarian ideals which makes it somewhat hard to pursue useful research.
If you really want to do the most good you can possible do, you should definitely read this article. ( Just replace “development aid” with “FAI”.) I also have some slides from GivingWhatWeCan which I could send you per email.
Oh, and have you read this post?
I’m really unsure why this is such a common conclusion. Maybe I’m overerestimating the bar for “math genius”, but there is some absurdly high amount of unexplored ground in areas relating to whole brain emulations and brain-computer interfaces. Neither of these are particularly math-heavy, and it’s likely that at there are parts of the problem that just require engineering or lab experience. My current estimate is that the more people working on WBE, the better. Also: the larger the fraction of the WBE community that cares about existential risks, the better.
(There’s also lots of unexplored ground in machine learning, but having people working on ML is probably less good than having people work on WBE, and also ML is significantly more math-intensive.)
On a separate note, I don’t think the people at SingInst, for instance, are so good at math that there is a vanishingly small probability of being better than them, even in fields where math is the determining factor (I don’t mean this as an attack on SingInst; the people from there that I’ve met all seem to be quite reasonable and capable people, for both qualitative and quantitative reasoning. But I don’t think that SingInst has been so optimized for math ability that no one else should even bother trying to contribute mathematically.)
I agree with this. Look at the list of SIAI’s publications—not all of them would have required a math genius to write.
I think that some of the most important papers relating to the Singularity so far have been (in no particular order) Eliezer’s CEV proposal, Omohundro’s Basic AI Drives, Robin Hanson’s If uploads come first, Carl Shulman’s Whole brain emulations and the evolution of superorganisms, Eliezer’s Artificial Intelligence as a Positive and Negative Factor in Global Risk, Anders Sandberg’s and Nick Bostrom’s Whole brain emulation roadmap, lukeprog and Louie Helm’s The Singularity and Machine Ethics, and the intelligence explosion paper that lukeprog and Anna Salamon are writing right now. I’d also like to imagine that my two draft papers might have some value. None of those would have required a math genius for a writer—in fact, the WBE roadmap is probably the only one that required any math knowledge at all. Of possible future directions, many of the Singularity and Machine Ethics proposals can be done without being a math genius as well.
Then there are various other useful paths that are less directly associated with research. Popular writing (the career path that I’m thinking about concentrating on) might inspire countless of people to pursue FAI-related pursuits if done well. (Or turn them away from it, if done badly.)
Note that the “it’s better to earn money to fund others to do research” presumption assumes that there are people who can be hired to do research. If everyone who’s interested in FAI/Singularity issues and isn’t a math genius decides to just earn money instead, that means that the only people who can be hired to do work on FAI/Singularity issues are either math geniuses or folks who’d rather be doing something else but agree to do this because it pays the bills. It’d be better to have math geniuses and genuinely motivated folks who were ready to do the tasks that weren’t the math geniuses’ comparative advantage.
Academia has many worthwhile resources. Giant libraries, laboratory funds, political/industrial connections, lawyers, and etc. The existence of status-driven professors does not make useful research impossible (or even difficult, really) to pursue.
Quitting psychology is not an option I’m afraid. Apart from science and rationality, the human mind is the only topic that ever constantly held my interest. Absolutely everything else seems to bore me to shits in no time, because my mind constantly focuses on what it feels to be “important” and my interest nearly hits ground zero as soon as I discover the relative direct unimportance of certain topics on my personal life.
I also have the same problem as you when it comes to making money: Not only do most ways to make some real money feel like a disgrace, I would probably also be slowly dying inside by doing something I hate.
There are however some ways to make some decent cash as a psychologist if you play your cards right… the title of “Dr.Happy” currently belongs to an Australian doctor, but that could be expected to change in a decade from now.
Rationality may also be something you could build a “pop-science-career” on, if the demand for it increases over time. Some rationality is better than none and raising the sanity-waterline probably wouldn’t hurt the future prospects of humanity either. (Not that I would intend to do second-class work in such a field as rationality-education, but since we’re still talking money, pop-science is where it’s at if I stick to psychology.)
There is a lot of useful work that can be done in psychology, largely because it currently is so full of bogus “theories”. You might find this post and web site useful, Theory and Why It’s Time Psychology Got One. Note that I don’t agree with a lot of what the embodied/ecological psychology school is doing, but it gives an interesting perspective on the neuropsych and cognitive schools mostly posted here.
Ah, I see, we are on the same page regarding money...
I also think that raising the sanity-waterline is a quite effective strategy. You describe yourself as an extrovert and say that you like writing. Maybe a “pop-science-career” is really the right path for you.
Even if 99.9% of academia is useless, getting 0.1% of it to contribute usefully to FAI research (by e.g. publishing quality papers on related topics and attracting interest) would be immense.
You’re right. The point I wanted to make is that especially in the field of psychology ( and especially in Germany) most people don’t work on anything interesting at all. In order to secure an academic position you have to suck up to your superiors and work for a substantial amount of time at their projects. And even after getting tenure you have to apply for grants and only get enough money if your research is accepted by the mainstream.
You are correct about the state of German science-affairs, which is why I might be willing to move to the US if that was needed to pursue my career—although I don’t know how different the grant-grabbing structure for psychology really is in America. That country is a disgrace on so many levels nowadays that it really would be a hard call for me to move there, but it still gets the most and best science in psychology (and I think also in general) done. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that I could pursue many psychology-paths there that simply wouldn’t be available to me in Germany.