Across loads of EA project, career development services and organisations in general there's a strong sentiment towards focusing on 'top talent'. For example in AI safety there are a few very well funded but extremely competitive programmes for graduates who want to do research in the field. Naturally their output is then limited to relatively small groups of people. An opposing trend seems to have gained traction in AI capability research as e.g. the "We have no moat" paper argued, where a load of output comes from the sheer mass of people working on the problem with a breadth-first approach. A corresponding opposite strategy for EA funds and career development services could be to spread the limited ressouces they have over a larger amount of people.
This concentration of funds on the development on a small group of top talent rather than distributing it over a wider group of people seems to me is a general sentiment quite prominent in the US economy and much less so in EU-countries like Germany, Scandinavia, the netherlands etc. I could imagine that EA origins in US/UK are a major reason for this structural focus.
Has anyone pointers to research on effectiveness comparisons between focusing on top talent vs a broader set of people, ideally in the context of EA? Or any personal thoughts/anecdotes to share on this?
Has anyone ever studied what happens to people who don't quite make the cut with the current funding bar that is focused on "top talent"? Are they going into AI capabilities work because that's where they could find a job in AI? Are they earning to give? Or leaving EA (if they were in EA to start with)?
That could inform my reaction to this question.
Really good question!