jackchang110
Bio
Participation1
How others can help me
A 19-year-old man deciding if he should double major in dentistry and CS(takes 8 years) or single major on CS(4 years). Currently suffering from knowing the feasibility of working in non-EA world to reduce AI s-risks
How I can help others
I'd be willing to spend time discuss with you on anything related to EA and serve as a thinking partner ( especially s-risks and career planning)
Posts 38
Comments59
Some additional thoughts: We often talk about personal fit, but would my comparative advantage/personal fit be earn-to-give as a dentist in the future? If I end up only aver ge at direct work, while dentistry would let me donate $80,000 per year, then that means I could fund one independent researcher who failed getting EA granting. If he's more talented than me, then donating may have more impact.
Also, if you think this question is not meaningful, feel free to tell me why.
Absoultely agree. In fact, currently as an EA beginner who is doing major decision(see: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/fpJLTFH9entmNoFMM/the-value-of-non-ea-world-direct-work-vs-earning-to-give-for), I'm really suffering from lacking EAs to talk with(I can only talk to ChatGPT most of the times). I have spent a lot of hours on thinking how to network and improving my gmail writing, however it seems to me 90% of EAs are quite busy and don't have any time to talk with beginner. I hope in the future when I became more expertised, I can spend hours per week on talking to beginners.
Thank you for posting this. I'm also thinking about the probability of stable totalitarianism recently, and your post gave me some new perspectives. Especially the idea that "Lie detection or mind-reading technique may increase totalitarianism" and "P(T) is like a series of dice rolls for each country"
Thanks for your answering a lot.
1. Yes, of course we don't completely know. However 80000 hours has written in their research that even if we are talking on "ex-ante" expected distribution of people, it's probably still fat- tailed distribution. Therefore, it's possible we "often" know who's going to be in fat tailed and who's probably not.
2.I've heard of this heuristic. However in my case, I have to predict in advance. (I can't work in a non-profit now since I'm only 19). Also, it's probable you reduce AI risks in the non-EA world. In that case, your marginal impact isn't the gap of you and the second best applying the job.