Benja Fallenstein is currently at the University of Bristol and was previously at the University of Vienna, although I’m not sure in exactly what capacity in either case. Nisan Stiennon now has a Ph.D. in mathematics from Stanford. And forgive my lack of modesty as well, but I’m currently a visiting fellow at MIRI. (Background: B.Sc. in mathematics from MIT, and if you care about the point Eliezer brought up, Putnam Honorable Mention. Paul Christiano was on the IMO team and Marcello Herreshoff was a USACO finalist.)
You’ll be added, and thanks for the extra information.
Another surprise was the small but non-negligible number of x-riskers who ‘only’ have an undergraduate degree or even less. I’ll probably reach out to those people to see if their backgrounds have any shared features. Unless the feature turns out to be ‘I’m a prodigy’. Nothing against the prodigies (I’m wasn’t too far off myself, when I was a younger), but it isn’t something reproducible. The best I can do now is work hard until I’m very, very good at math/computing/philosophy, and it’s less impressive when you’re an adult :-)
Well, some of the people on this list are currently in graduate school (e.g. Paul Christiano and myself). Some others dropped out. There’s something of a culture of dropping out of graduate school in the Bay Area rationality community.
UC Berkeley has the virtue of being physically close to CFAR / MIRI, but it has so many students that “high concentration” is both false and not obviously a good metric to use when commenting on its rationalist population (which includes me, Paul Christiano, Alex Mennen, and probably other people I’m forgetting). MIRI is planning on moving closer to it as well.
Has there ever been any talk of establishing an FHI type thing at UC Berkeley? Liron Shapira might be interested in participating; he’s an alumnus. Their faculty club hosted Robin Hanson’s talk on effective altruism, right?
(The only problem with this plan is that it would leave too many important people vulnerable to a devastating California earthquake.)
Benja Fallenstein is currently at the University of Bristol and was previously at the University of Vienna, although I’m not sure in exactly what capacity in either case. Nisan Stiennon now has a Ph.D. in mathematics from Stanford. And forgive my lack of modesty as well, but I’m currently a visiting fellow at MIRI. (Background: B.Sc. in mathematics from MIT, and if you care about the point Eliezer brought up, Putnam Honorable Mention. Paul Christiano was on the IMO team and Marcello Herreshoff was a USACO finalist.)
I’ve got a BSc in mathematics from University of Vienna, and the degree I’m working on in Bristol is a PhD, also in mathematics.
Excellent, I couldn’t find your information anywhere. You’re updated, and thank you for your help.
You’ll be added, and thanks for the extra information.
Another surprise was the small but non-negligible number of x-riskers who ‘only’ have an undergraduate degree or even less. I’ll probably reach out to those people to see if their backgrounds have any shared features. Unless the feature turns out to be ‘I’m a prodigy’. Nothing against the prodigies (I’m wasn’t too far off myself, when I was a younger), but it isn’t something reproducible. The best I can do now is work hard until I’m very, very good at math/computing/philosophy, and it’s less impressive when you’re an adult :-)
Well, some of the people on this list are currently in graduate school (e.g. Paul Christiano and myself). Some others dropped out. There’s something of a culture of dropping out of graduate school in the Bay Area rationality community.
Maybe I need to apply to graduate school in San Francisco and then drop out :)
Incidentally, are there good graduate schools in the area with a high concentration of rationalists or connection to the rationalist community?
UC Berkeley has the virtue of being physically close to CFAR / MIRI, but it has so many students that “high concentration” is both false and not obviously a good metric to use when commenting on its rationalist population (which includes me, Paul Christiano, Alex Mennen, and probably other people I’m forgetting). MIRI is planning on moving closer to it as well.
CFAR and MIRI are both moving shortly to within walking distance of campus (same building).
Has there ever been any talk of establishing an FHI type thing at UC Berkeley? Liron Shapira might be interested in participating; he’s an alumnus. Their faculty club hosted Robin Hanson’s talk on effective altruism, right?
(The only problem with this plan is that it would leave too many important people vulnerable to a devastating California earthquake.)
Okay, physical proximity to those organizations will probably affect my decision. Thanks for the information.
Stanford and Berkeley.
Disclaimer: I’m a Stanford student.
ETA: Also see what Qiaochu said.