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I wrote on my personal Substack about my experience switching careers from global health to AI safety -- the basic story is that I accepted the intellectual, rational case for working on AI safety for years, but kept getting stuck and blocked because it felt emotionally risk and scary to make a big change.
I think there are many others in that position, and I hope this post will be useful to them.
Some key excerpts:
...for many big decisions, the bigness itself is what prevents us from making progress, and coldly rational arguments don't actually motivate action unless you feel safe. When your animal brain feels like things are too risky, it will protect you by generating reasons to avoid the decision. And these reasons will often be excuses rather than principled, action-guiding beliefs.
When I talk to people interested in pivoting to AI safety, they often [...] believe AI safety is important and urgent, but they don’t feel ready to act on those beliefs. Instead, they generate a bunch of reasons why they shouldn’t.
[...]
But I think they are largely fake objections, by which I mean they aren’t actually meaningful or motivating for the person who's raising them. Fake objections present as reasonable concerns, but really, they’re unconsciously generated to give people cover to avoid leaving the security of their status quo.
After I sorted all my concerns into fake vs. reasonable, I realized that my reticence to switch careers wasn't about potentially draining the global health field of talent, expected value and uncertainty, relative research rigor, population ethics, or any of the philosophical objections that I previously raised.
I was actually blocked because I was in my favorite job ever, with my favorite manager of all time, surrounded by colleagues that I admired, with incredible opportunities for growth. I was worried that I wouldn't be good enough for jobs in AI safety, and the inherent risk of leaving something great for something unproven terrified me
Once you discard all the fake reasons, you'll almost certainly be left with some real blockers.
But once you're looking at those things clearly, I think you can make fast progress on them[.]
After you resolve all of your specific concerns, I predict that you'll still be dogged by the fear of leaving whatever you're currently doing. That makes sense — for most people, staying the course in their current role will be more secure and stable than whatever pivot option they’re exploring that makes sense.
[...]
So, I think the final step for most people will look something like asking yourself: Am I willing to accept some risk in order to potentially make a much larger impact with my career?
Read the post!
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