Give me career advice

By sammyboiz @ 2024-07-05T08:48 (+6)

I feel like all my career path choices are not as good as I want them to be: (Software Engineer, AI researcher, AI alignment researcher, all-in with PauseAI)

I am 19 and a second-year university student studying computer science. I am very bought-into AI X/S-Risk and I want to help prevent these risks somehow.

Path 1: Software Engineer:

I will have a bachelors in 2026 and I can start earning to give towards X-risk orgs.

Pro: If the singularity is near <10 years (My belief), i would be able to have an impact in time.
Pro: Financially correct if there will not be jobs in 10 years.
Con: Programming will be automated before my other career path choices. Even by 2026, the job market might be partially or completely automated.
Con: Not as exciting as doing something in AI or AI safety

Path 2: AI researcher: Work at top-AI lab likely doing capabilities research

Pro: Last job to be automated
Pro: Chance of extremely high pay
Con: Against my values since I would likely accelerate doom scenarios.

Path 3: AI-Alignment researcher for AI-lab or non-profit

Pro: Fits my values
Pro: Last job to be automated
Con: I am skeptical about the impact of alignment research.
Con: Is there money in alignment research???
Con: Working at a top AI lab would still likely be against my values.

Path 4: All-in with PauseAI and do grunt work outreach

Pro: Given <10 year timelines, this could have the most impact
Con: My parents think i'm crazy, I don't make money.

Path 5: Other

Any other ideas?

defun @ 2024-07-05T09:08 (+8)

An other option: try to get a SWE internship now. Then, depending on how it goes, you might want to consider dropping out.

Some of my best swe colleagues dropped out because they had full-time jobs. It probably accelerated their career by 1 or 2 years.

sammyboiz @ 2024-07-05T09:48 (+1)

I'm currently sitting at a desk at a SWE unpaid internship LOL.

Some of my best swe colleagues dropped out because they had full-time jobs. It probably accelerated their career by 1 or 2 years.

I don't think I currently have the skills to start getting paid for SWE work sadly.

defun @ 2024-07-05T12:32 (+1)

I'm currently sitting at a desk at a SWE unpaid internship LOL.

Nice!

I don't think I currently have the skills to start getting paid for SWE work sadly.

Gotcha. Probably combining your studies with internships is the best option for now.

Chris Leong @ 2024-07-06T04:52 (+3)

You wrote that governance is more important than technical research. Have you considered technical work that supports governance? The AI Safety Fundamentals course has a week on this.

In any case, working in AI or AI safety would increase your credibility for any activism that you decide to engage in.

defun @ 2024-07-05T09:13 (+3)

Con: Programming will be automated before my other career path choices.

Are you confident about this claim?

sammyboiz @ 2024-07-05T09:55 (+1)

Thanks for your responses, they are very insightful.

As AI operations scale up, it feels like AI/ML engineers will become more valuable and mid-sized SWE jobs will be swallowed by LLMs and those building them.

I'm very curious about your opinion on this.

defun @ 2024-07-05T12:30 (+2)

An LLM capable of automating "mid-sized SWE jobs" would probably be able to accelerate AI research and would be capable of cyberattacks. I guess: AI labs would not release such a powerful model, they would just use it internally to reach ASI.

defun @ 2024-07-05T09:12 (+3)

Con: Not as exciting as doing something in AI or AI safety

There's a lot of software engineering work around AI. https://x.com/gdb/status/1729893902814192096

sammyboiz @ 2024-07-05T10:00 (+1)

This is something I have not considered, thank you.

I assume that ML skills are less in-supply however?

defun @ 2024-07-05T12:34 (+1)

I assume that ML skills are less in-supply however?

I think there's enough demand for both.