Notes on EA-related research, writing, testing fit, learning, and the Forum

By MichaelA🔸 @ 2021-03-27T09:52 (+98)

UPDATE: I now consider my 2022 Interested in EA/longtermist research careers? Here are my top recommended resources a better starting point than this older post, but this post might be useful after you've read that 2022 one.

Cross-posted to LessWrong.

I've had calls with >30 people who are interested in things like testing their fit for EA-aligned research careers, writing on the Forum, "getting up to speed" on areas of EA, etc. (This is usually during EA conferences.)

I gradually collected a set of links and notes that I felt that many such people would benefit from seeing, then turned that into a Google Doc. Many people told me they found that doc useful, so I'm now (a) sharing it as a public post, and (b) still entertaining the hypothesis that those people were all just vicious liars and sycophants, of course.

Disclaimers

Not all of these links/notes will be relevant to any given person
These links/notes are most relevant to people interested in (1) research roles, (2) roles at explicitly EA organisations, and/or (3) longtermism
- But this just because that’s what I know best
  - There are of course many important roles that aren’t about research or aren’t at EA orgs!
  - And I'm happy with many EAs prioritising cause areas other than longtermism
- But, in any case, some of the links/notes will also be relevant to other people and pathways
This doc mentions some orgs I work for or have worked for previously, but the opinions expressed here are my own, and I wrote the post (and the doc it evolved from) in a personal capacity

Regarding writing, the Forum, etc.

Why you (yes, you) should post on the EA Forum (a talk by Aaron Gertler)
How you can make an impact on the EA Forum (another talk by Aaron Gertler)
- Aaron also made a companion document which I think is useful even if you don't watch the talk
Feedback available for EA Forum drafts (a post by that Aaron Gertler guy I've been hearing so much about lately)
Effective Altruism Editing and Review
Reasoning Transparency
- This has great writing tips that definitely apply on the Forum, and ideally would apply everywhere, but unfortunately they don’t perfectly align with the norms in some areas/fields
Readings and notes on how to write/communicate well
Reasons for and against posting on the EA Forum
Regarding types of writing you can do:
- Write about any of the research ideas in the links in the next section
- Write summaries and/or collections
- Write book reviews (see Buck's suggestion, my suggestion, and posts tagged books)
- "deep dive into seminal papers/blog posts and attempt to identify all the empirical and conceptual errors in past work, especially writings by either a) other respected EAs or b) other stuff that we otherwise think of as especially important." (see Linch's shortform)
I also encourage you to consider reading, commenting, and posting on LessWrong
- See Welcome to LessWrong! for a great introduction to that site
Sometimes people worry that a post idea might be missing some obvious, core insight, or just replicating some other writing you haven't come across. I think this is mainly a problem only inasmuch as it could've been more efficient for you to learn things than slowly craft a post.
- So if you can write (a rough version of) the post quickly, you could just do that.
- Or you could ask around or make a quick Question post to outline the basic idea and ask if anyone knows of relevant things you should read.

Research ideas

Research questions that could have a big social impact, organised by discipline
A central directory for open research questions
Crucial questions for longtermists
Some history topics it might be very valuable to investigate
- This is somewhat less noteworthy than the other links

Programs, approaches, or tips for testing fit for (longtermism-related) research

Programs

Not all of these things are necessarily "open" right now.

Here are things I would describe as research training programs (in alphabetical order to avoid picking favourites):

Note: I know less about what the opportunities at the Center for Reducing Suffering and the Nonlinear Fund would be like than I know about what the other opportunities would be like, so I'm not necessarily able to personally endorse those two opportunities.

Other things

Effective Thesis
- See in particular Resources page
Consider doing a graduate degree?
- Perhaps ideally with a researcher supervisor who's an excellent researcher themselves, and who is either working on high-priority topics or is flexible enough to accommodate you working on high-priority topics
- You could contact Effective Thesis for advice on this
Offer to be a research assistant for someone doing great work?
- See Matthew Van Der Merwe’s thoughts on RA roles
- See my Notes from a call with someone who's an RA to a great researcher
- These roles can sometimes be done remotely
Annotated List of Project Ideas & Volunteering Resources - EA Forum
Grants
Undergraduate thesis prize — Forethought Foundation
Improving the EA-aligned research pipeline: Sequence introduction
- This sequence is targeted more at people who could help improve the pipeline than at people aiming to enter and move through that pipeline, but various parts could still be useful to the latter group of people.
Readings and notes on how to do high-impact research
Readings and notes on how to do high-quality, efficient research
Collection of collections of resources relevant to (research) management, mentorship, training, etc.

Getting “up to speed” on EA, longtermism, x-risks, etc.

The Precipice
Crucial questions for longtermists
A ranked list of all EA-relevant (audio)books I've read
A list of EA-related podcasts
Where to find EA-related videos
What are some good online courses relevant to EA?
How I personally “got up to speed”
You can search the EA Forum tags page for relevant tags, read those pages (since they're also Wiki entries), and use them as directories to useful posts, authors to talk to, etc.
I now make and use Anki cards, and would encourage other people to consider doing so too

Other

Career planning: An in-depth process & template (80,000 Hours)
- One key piece of career advice I want to highlight is that people often apply to too few things, don't make enough ambitious applications, and/or don't make enough "safe applications"
  - I think it's generally good to apply to a lot of things, including both ambitious and safe options
  - (But of course, any piece of general career advice will have some exceptions)
Get Involved
Research Methods
EA Creatives and Communicators Slack

I'd welcome comments suggesting other relevant links, or just sharing people's own thoughts on any of the topics addressed above!

Peter Wildeford @ 2021-07-15T01:08 (+8)

I definitely agree that one of the best things applicants interested in roles at organizations like ours can do to improve their odds of being a successful researcher is to read and write independent research for this forum and get feedback from the community.

I think another underrated way to acquire a credible and relevant credential is to become a top forecaster on Metaculus, Good Judgement Open, or Facebook’s Forecastapp.

nil @ 2021-04-04T00:23 (+6)

Thanks for sharing, Michael!

I think the Center for Reducing Suffering's Open Research Questions may be a helpful addition to Research ideas. (Do let me know if you think otherwise!)

Relatedly, CRS has an internship opportunity.

Also, perhaps this is intentional but "Readings and notes on how to do high-impact research" is repeated twice in the list.

MichaelA @ 2021-04-04T01:59 (+3)

Relatedly, CRS has an internship opportunity.

Thanks for mentioning this - I'll now added it to the "Programs [...]" section :)

MichaelA @ 2021-04-04T01:59 (+2)

Also, perhaps this is intentional but "Readings and notes on how to do high-impact research" is repeated twice in the list.

This was intentional, but I think I no longer endorse that decision, so I've now removed the second mention.

MichaelA @ 2021-04-04T01:56 (+2)

I think the Center for Reducing Suffering's Open Research Questions may be a helpful addition to Research ideas. (Do let me know if you think otherwise!)

I definitely think that that list is within-scope for this document, but (or "and relatedly") I've already got it in the Central directory for open research questions that's linked to from here.

There are many relevant collections of research questions, and I've already included all the ones I'm aware of in that other post. So I think it doesn't make sense to add any here unless I think the collection is especially worth highlighting to people interested in testing their fit for (longtermism-related) research.

I think the 80k collection fits that bill due to being curated, organised by discipline, and aimed at giving a representative sense of many different areas. I think my "Crucial questions" post fits that bill due to being aimed at overviewing the whole landscape of longtermism in a fairly comprehensive and structured way (though of course, there's probably some bias in my assessment here!).

I think my history topics collection fits that bill, but I'm less sure. So I've now added below it the disclaimer "This is somewhat less noteworthy than the other links".

I think my RSP doc doesn't fit that bill, really, so in the process of writing this comment I've decided to move that out of this post and into my Central directory post.

(The fact that this post evolved out of notes I shared with people also helps explain why stuff I wrote has perhaps undue prominence here.)

MichaelA @ 2021-03-27T09:54 (+4)

Here's one other section that was in the doc. I'm guessing this section will be less useful to the average person than the other sections, so I've "demoted" it to a comment.

Some quick thoughts regarding the value of posting on the Forum and/or conducting independent research, in my experience

Note that:
- This section is lightly edited from what I wrote ~August 2020; I didn't bother fully updating it with newer evidence and thoughts
- This may of course not generalise to other people.
- Some of this work was independent, some was associated with Convergence Analysis (who I worked for), and some was in between
Doing this definitely improved my thinking, my network, and how well-known I am among EAs
- Not sure how much the third thing actually matters
Doing this seems to have accelerated my career trajectory via the above and via providing evidence of my abilities
- See also this comment
I have some evidence of impact from my work
- See my data and reflections here
- Various people have cited my posts
  - Perhaps most often my database of existential risk (or similar) estimates
  - Sometimes those people were prominent EA researchers I respect
  - Mostly this was in other Forum posts or comments
    - But also at least twice in potentially important non-Forum reports
      - E.g., a Founder's Pledge report
  - Often the citation seemed to suggest my work was a handy summary of an idea the person wanted to mention, rather than strongly suggesting that my posts advanced the person's own thinking in a key way
    - But sometimes it seemed more like the latter
      - E.g., I was told that Research questions that could have a big social impact, organised by discipline was kind-of based on or made much easier by my Central directory of open research questions
- I was told that an organisation I respect had a discussion about what their theory of change was and should be, prompted by a related post of mine
The network-building/signalling from this may have also helped me have impact in other ways
- E.g., I was contacted to review the above-mentioned Founders Pledge report, and was told my comments helped improve the report

MichaelA @ 2021-04-01T01:31 (+3)

Some people might also find it useful to check out EA-related facebook groups, which there's a directory for here: https://www.facebook.com/EffectiveGroups/

Mauricio @ 2021-03-28T00:41 (+3)

Thanks, Michael!

The list of summer research training programs seems helpful. There might be some newer ones that are worth adding too.

MichaelA @ 2021-03-28T03:59 (+3)

Yeah, thanks for point this out! SERI seems cool to me, and I've now added a link to that form :)

(I actually added the link right before you made your comment, I think, due to someone else highlighting it to me in a different context. But it was indeed absent from the initial version of the post.)

MichaelA @ 2021-12-21T13:53 (+2)