You could always publish impressive but unusable papers if you really wanted to.. Alternatively, if you have good AGI insights, just use them to help you find small improvements in current AGI research to keep people off your back. More overhead, but still, you’re getting paid to do whatever you like with part of your time.. not bad.
Upvoted for conciseness, but “A respectable academic setting doesn’t seem optimal for getting work done”? Why do you say so? That is, of course it’s not optimal, but what comparably expensive environment do you think would be better and why?
I was thinking of FAI as a typical contrarian cause, and that a respectable academic setting might be too strict for Eliezer to, say, work on the book or study math for a year.
I wasn’t thinking of other causes, nor do I know much about respectable academic settings. Unqualified guess for other causes.
I was thinking of FAI as a typical contrarian cause, and that a respectable academic setting might be too strict for Eliezer to, say, work on the book or study math for a year.
The primary point of tenure is that it frees people up to study more or less whatever they please. Now, that only applies to academics who already have major successes behind them, but it isn’t at all hard for an academic to spend a year studying something relevant to what they want to do. For that matter, one could just as easily say take a year long Masters in math, or audit relevant classes at a local college. You are overestimating the level of restriction that academic settings create.
Not this
A respectable academic setting doesn’t seem optimal for getting work done
Not necessarily this, though why does advocacy suck, in your opinion?
For example, they might make you publish your work on AGI. This could be very bad.
You could always publish impressive but unusable papers if you really wanted to.. Alternatively, if you have good AGI insights, just use them to help you find small improvements in current AGI research to keep people off your back. More overhead, but still, you’re getting paid to do whatever you like with part of your time.. not bad.
Upvoted for conciseness, but “A respectable academic setting doesn’t seem optimal for getting work done”? Why do you say so? That is, of course it’s not optimal, but what comparably expensive environment do you think would be better and why?
Huh.
I was thinking of FAI as a typical contrarian cause, and that a respectable academic setting might be too strict for Eliezer to, say, work on the book or study math for a year. I wasn’t thinking of other causes, nor do I know much about respectable academic settings. Unqualified guess for other causes.
stealth edit
The primary point of tenure is that it frees people up to study more or less whatever they please. Now, that only applies to academics who already have major successes behind them, but it isn’t at all hard for an academic to spend a year studying something relevant to what they want to do. For that matter, one could just as easily say take a year long Masters in math, or audit relevant classes at a local college. You are overestimating the level of restriction that academic settings create.
Thanks.