Find the best published case anyone has made for each research program. If you have access, ask the most capable people in each program to share their reasons for working on it as opposed to alternatives.
This should at least be interesting. I expect that there are smart people with good aesthetic sense, intuition, or just luck, working in a great direction, who will fail to communicate any of that effectively (obviously luck is incommunicable). But there should be some smart people in all of the viable programs who have spent time thinking about precisely these questions.
Robin Hanson recently described (and partially endorsed) the tendency for many bright people to avoid thinking about the big picture once they’ve committed to a course (instead focusing on achieving the rewards they expect from it).
Find the best published case anyone has made for each research program. If you have access, ask the most capable people in each program to share their reasons for working on it as opposed to alternatives.
This should at least be interesting. I expect that there are smart people with good aesthetic sense, intuition, or just luck, working in a great direction, who will fail to communicate any of that effectively (obviously luck is incommunicable). But there should be some smart people in all of the viable programs who have spent time thinking about precisely these questions.
Robin Hanson recently described (and partially endorsed) the tendency for many bright people to avoid thinking about the big picture once they’ve committed to a course (instead focusing on achieving the rewards they expect from it).