Also because nobody has a great solution yet for alignment, I can see that it is very easy for any work to be heavily critiqued. In other domains, you can feel like you are contributing something valuable even if you aren’t doing anything ground-breaking. This is slightly different from not feeling smart enough I think. Although it hasn’t happened to me (yet!) because I haven’t shared any of my ideas publicly, I can see that the constant critique is something that could be quite demotivating.
As a newcomer too, my experience of the community is that is has felt much less supportive than in other technical fields I have worked in (although I have also met some people who are lovely exceptions!). It has certainly made me question somewhat if it is an area that I want to work in. I’m not sufficiently convinced that I’m going to solve alignment that it feels imperative for me to work in the field and I still feel I have lots of agency about whether I do or not. However, for somebody who doesn’t feel that sense of agency or who hasn’t experienced different communities, I can imagine that it might affect their mental health slightly subtly and perniciously without them realising its impact.
Also because nobody has a great solution yet for alignment, I can see that it is very easy for any work to be heavily critiqued. In other domains, you can feel like you are contributing something valuable even if you aren’t doing anything ground-breaking. This is slightly different from not feeling smart enough I think. Although it hasn’t happened to me (yet!) because I haven’t shared any of my ideas publicly, I can see that the constant critique is something that could be quite demotivating.
As a newcomer too, my experience of the community is that is has felt much less supportive than in other technical fields I have worked in (although I have also met some people who are lovely exceptions!). It has certainly made me question somewhat if it is an area that I want to work in. I’m not sufficiently convinced that I’m going to solve alignment that it feels imperative for me to work in the field and I still feel I have lots of agency about whether I do or not. However, for somebody who doesn’t feel that sense of agency or who hasn’t experienced different communities, I can imagine that it might affect their mental health slightly subtly and perniciously without them realising its impact.