I observe that, of the 16 awards of money from the AI alignmnet prize, as far as I can see none of the winners had a full-time project that wasn’t working on AI alignment (i.e. they either worked on alignment full time, or else were financially supported in a way that gave them the space to devote their attention to it fully for the purpose of the prize). I myself, just now introspecting on why I didn’t apply, didn’t S1-expect to be able to produce anything I expected to win a prize without ~1 month of work, and I have to work on LessWrong. This suggests some natural interventions (e.g. somehow giving out smaller prizes for good efforts even if they weren’t successful).
Interesting. Can you talk a bit more about how much time you actually devoted to thinking about whitelisting in the lead up to the work that was awarded, and whether you considered it your top priority at the time?
Yes, it was the top idea on/off over a few months. I considered it my secret research and thought on my twice daily walks, in the shower, and in class when bored. I developed it for my CHAI application and extended it as my final Bayesian stats project. Probably 5-10 hours a week, plus more top idea time. However, the core idea came within the first hour of thinking about Concrete Problems.
The second piece, Overcoming Clinginess, was provoked by Abram’s comment that clinginess seemed like the most damning failure of whitelisting; at the time, I thought just finding a way to overcome clinginess would be an extremely productive use of my entire summer (lol). On an AMS—PDX flight, I put on some music and spent hours running through different scenarios to dissolve my confusion. I hit the solution after about 5 hours of work, spending 3 hours formalizing it a bit and 5 more making it look nice.
Yeah, this is similar to how I got into the game. Just thinking about it in my spare time for fun.
From your and others’ comments, it sounds like a prize for best work isn’t the best use of money. It’s better to spend money on getting more people into the game. In that case it probably shouldn’t be a competition: beginners need gradual rewards, not one-shot high stakes. Something like a more flat subsidy for studying and mentoring could work better. Thank you for making me realize that! I’ll try to talk about it with folks.
fwiw, thirding this perception (although my take is less relevant since I didn’t feel like I was in the target reference class in the first place)
I observe that, of the 16 awards of money from the AI alignmnet prize, as far as I can see none of the winners had a full-time project that wasn’t working on AI alignment (i.e. they either worked on alignment full time, or else were financially supported in a way that gave them the space to devote their attention to it fully for the purpose of the prize). I myself, just now introspecting on why I didn’t apply, didn’t S1-expect to be able to produce anything I expected to win a prize without ~1 month of work, and I have to work on LessWrong. This suggests some natural interventions (e.g. somehow giving out smaller prizes for good efforts even if they weren’t successful).
In round three, I was working on computational molecule design research and completing coursework; whitelisting was developed in my spare time.
In fact, during the school year I presently don’t have research funding, so I spend some of my time as a teaching assistant.
Interesting. Can you talk a bit more about how much time you actually devoted to thinking about whitelisting in the lead up to the work that was awarded, and whether you considered it your top priority at the time?
Added: Was it the top idea in your mind for any substantial period of time?
Yes, it was the top idea on/off over a few months. I considered it my secret research and thought on my twice daily walks, in the shower, and in class when bored. I developed it for my CHAI application and extended it as my final Bayesian stats project. Probably 5-10 hours a week, plus more top idea time. However, the core idea came within the first hour of thinking about Concrete Problems.
The second piece, Overcoming Clinginess, was provoked by Abram’s comment that clinginess seemed like the most damning failure of whitelisting; at the time, I thought just finding a way to overcome clinginess would be an extremely productive use of my entire summer (lol). On an AMS—PDX flight, I put on some music and spent hours running through different scenarios to dissolve my confusion. I hit the solution after about 5 hours of work, spending 3 hours formalizing it a bit and 5 more making it look nice.
Yeah, this is similar to how I got into the game. Just thinking about it in my spare time for fun.
From your and others’ comments, it sounds like a prize for best work isn’t the best use of money. It’s better to spend money on getting more people into the game. In that case it probably shouldn’t be a competition: beginners need gradual rewards, not one-shot high stakes. Something like a more flat subsidy for studying and mentoring could work better. Thank you for making me realize that! I’ll try to talk about it with folks.
I also think surveying applicants might be a good idea, since my experience may not be representative.