Grad school is infamously bad for your mental health. Something like one-third of my classmates dropped out. My AI safety researcher friends are overall less depressed and more happy, as far as I can tell, though it’s hard to tell because it’s so subjective.
These less depressed people you talk about, are they already getting paid as AI safety researchers, or are they self-studying to (hopefully) become AI safety researchers?
In any case, I’m clearly generalising from my own situation, so it may not extend very far. To flesh out this data point: I had 2 years of runway, so money wasn’t a problem, but I already felt beaten down by LW to the extent that I couldn’t really take any more hits to my self-esteem, so I couldn’t risk putting myself up for rejection again. That’s basically why I mostly left LW.
Grad school is infamously bad for your mental health. Something like one-third of my classmates dropped out. My AI safety researcher friends are overall less depressed and more happy, as far as I can tell, though it’s hard to tell because it’s so subjective.
These less depressed people you talk about, are they already getting paid as AI safety researchers, or are they self-studying to (hopefully) become AI safety researchers?
In any case, I’m clearly generalising from my own situation, so it may not extend very far. To flesh out this data point: I had 2 years of runway, so money wasn’t a problem, but I already felt beaten down by LW to the extent that I couldn’t really take any more hits to my self-esteem, so I couldn’t risk putting myself up for rejection again. That’s basically why I mostly left LW.
Ah, good point, mostly the former category. I only know a few people in the latter category.