I still want to work on technical AI safety eventually.
I feel like I’m on quite far off path from directly being useful in 2025 than I felt in 2023.
And taking a detour to do a TCS PhD that isn’t directly pertinent to AI safety (current plan) feels like not contributing.
Cope is that becoming a strong TCS researcher will make me better poised to contribute to the problem, but short timelines could make this path less viable.
[Though there’s nothing saying I can’t try to work on AI on the side even if it isn’t the focus of my PhD.]
There is not an insignificant sense of guilt/of betraying myself from 2023 and my ambitions from before.
And I don’t want to just end up doing irrelevant TCS research that only a few researchers in a niche field will ever care about.
It’s not high impact research.
And it’s mostly just settling. I get the sense that I enjoy theoretical research, I don’t currently feel poised to contribute to the AI safety problem, I seem to have an unusually good (at least it appears so to my limited understanding) opportunity to pursue a boring TCS PhD in some niche field that few people care about.
I don’t think I’ll be miserable pursuing the boring TCS PhD or not enjoy it, or anything of the sort. It’s just not directly contributing to what I wanted to contribute to. It’s somewhat sad and it’s undignified (but it’s less undignified than the path I thought I was on at various points in the last 15 months).
I still want to work on technical AI safety eventually.
I feel like I’m on quite far off path from directly being useful in 2025 than I felt in 2023.
And taking a detour to do a TCS PhD that isn’t directly pertinent to AI safety (current plan) feels like not contributing.
Cope is that becoming a strong TCS researcher will make me better poised to contribute to the problem, but short timelines could make this path less viable.
[Though there’s nothing saying I can’t try to work on AI on the side even if it isn’t the focus of my PhD.]
There is not an insignificant sense of guilt/of betraying myself from 2023 and my ambitions from before.
And I don’t want to just end up doing irrelevant TCS research that only a few researchers in a niche field will ever care about.
It’s not high impact research.
And it’s mostly just settling. I get the sense that I enjoy theoretical research, I don’t currently feel poised to contribute to the AI safety problem, I seem to have an unusually good (at least it appears so to my limited understanding) opportunity to pursue a boring TCS PhD in some niche field that few people care about.
I don’t think I’ll be miserable pursuing the boring TCS PhD or not enjoy it, or anything of the sort. It’s just not directly contributing to what I wanted to contribute to. It’s somewhat sad and it’s undignified (but it’s less undignified than the path I thought I was on at various points in the last 15 months).