For context, I have a very similar background to you—I’m a software engineer with a computer science degree interested in working on AI alignment.
LTFF granted about $10 million last year. Even if all that money were spent on independent AI alignment researchers, if each researcher costs $100k per year, then there would only be enough money to fund about 100 researchers in the world per year so I don’t see LTFF as a scalable solution.
Unlike software engineering, AI alignment research tends to be neglected and underfunded because it’s not an activity that can easily be made profitable. That’s one reason why there are far more software engineers than AI alignment researchers.
Work that is unprofitable but beneficial such as basic science research has traditionally been done by university researchers who, to the best of my knowledge, are mainly funded by government grants.
I have also considered becoming independently wealthy to work on AI alignment in the past but that strategy seems too slow if AGI will be created relatively soon.
So my plan is to apply for jobs at organizations like Redwood Research or apply for funding from LTFF and if those plans fail, I will consider getting a PhD and getting funding from the government instead which seems more scalable.
For context, I have a very similar background to you—I’m a software engineer with a computer science degree interested in working on AI alignment.
LTFF granted about $10 million last year. Even if all that money were spent on independent AI alignment researchers, if each researcher costs $100k per year, then there would only be enough money to fund about 100 researchers in the world per year so I don’t see LTFF as a scalable solution.
Unlike software engineering, AI alignment research tends to be neglected and underfunded because it’s not an activity that can easily be made profitable. That’s one reason why there are far more software engineers than AI alignment researchers.
Work that is unprofitable but beneficial such as basic science research has traditionally been done by university researchers who, to the best of my knowledge, are mainly funded by government grants.
I have also considered becoming independently wealthy to work on AI alignment in the past but that strategy seems too slow if AGI will be created relatively soon.
So my plan is to apply for jobs at organizations like Redwood Research or apply for funding from LTFF and if those plans fail, I will consider getting a PhD and getting funding from the government instead which seems more scalable.