Does anyone have any ideas for how people who are just getting started learning proof based math, can contribute to AI safety? This applies for people who are in their late 20s/early 30s and have trouble in a traditional school environment
How do people gain reputation on this forum for convincing others of their ideas/importance on topics related to AI safety? I know of people who make high quality/novel posts only to have just one upvote or a comment, and no traction—if not this forum, where can they publicize their ideas so they can be a convincing AI safety researcher?
“Just getting started learning” sounds unconvincing. Can you actually write a non-trivial computer proof? There are some math publications on the MIRI web page, can you imagine writing a computer proof for any of them? (If yes, contact the author first, to make sure someone else hasn’t already done that.)
You can try your skills e.g. here. In my opinion (but I am not an expert), you should be able to complete at least half of it, before you have a chance to do something useful.
People on this forum gain reputation by writing texts that get upvoted, because readers consider the texts valuable.
Sorry if I’m too harsh, but it seems to me that you are trying to do things the wrong way: get reputation first, do awesome things later. It’s the other way round: do something awesome, then maybe advertise it a bit, people will notice and maybe remember, and then they will give more weight to your later opinions.
I know of people who make high quality/novel posts only to have just one upvote or a comment, and no traction
You didn’t provide specific examples, so it is hard to comment on this. Maybe it was bad luck. Maybe others did not judge the quality as high as you did. (If it was just a question of bad luck, you might have given the article second chance by mentioning it.)
That statement seems far too strong, at least if you aren’t just talking about a very narrow subset of AI safety research (part of MIRI’s agenda). at a glance, that website gauges a skillset associated with one flavor of proof-based mathematics. For proof-based AI safety work, i think that the more important and general skill is: can you make meaningful formal conjectures and then prove them?
I admit I am confused about what exactly “proof based math” means. I assumed that in general all math is proof based, so this specifically refers to computer proofs. If not, then of course my advice does not apply.
“Sorry if I’m too harsh, but it seems to me that you are trying to do things the wrong way: get reputation first, do awesome things later. It’s the other way round: do something awesome, then maybe advertise it a bit, people will notice and maybe remember, and then they will give more weight to your later opinions.”
I can see how it’s confusing that I may have suggested I wanted to do this wrong order for myself—I was asking the second question for someone else, actually, who has put in a lot of time/effort to build up lots of ideas/share them on this forum but has gotten very little traction.
Does anyone have any ideas for how people who are just getting started learning proof based math, can contribute to AI safety? This applies for people who are in their late 20s/early 30s and have trouble in a traditional school environment
How do people gain reputation on this forum for convincing others of their ideas/importance on topics related to AI safety? I know of people who make high quality/novel posts only to have just one upvote or a comment, and no traction—if not this forum, where can they publicize their ideas so they can be a convincing AI safety researcher?
“Just getting started learning” sounds unconvincing. Can you actually write a non-trivial computer proof? There are some math publications on the MIRI web page, can you imagine writing a computer proof for any of them? (If yes, contact the author first, to make sure someone else hasn’t already done that.)
You can try your skills e.g. here. In my opinion (but I am not an expert), you should be able to complete at least half of it, before you have a chance to do something useful.
People on this forum gain reputation by writing texts that get upvoted, because readers consider the texts valuable.
Sorry if I’m too harsh, but it seems to me that you are trying to do things the wrong way: get reputation first, do awesome things later. It’s the other way round: do something awesome, then maybe advertise it a bit, people will notice and maybe remember, and then they will give more weight to your later opinions.
You didn’t provide specific examples, so it is hard to comment on this. Maybe it was bad luck. Maybe others did not judge the quality as high as you did. (If it was just a question of bad luck, you might have given the article second chance by mentioning it.)
That statement seems far too strong, at least if you aren’t just talking about a very narrow subset of AI safety research (part of MIRI’s agenda). at a glance, that website gauges a skillset associated with one flavor of proof-based mathematics. For proof-based AI safety work, i think that the more important and general skill is: can you make meaningful formal conjectures and then prove them?
I admit I am confused about what exactly “proof based math” means. I assumed that in general all math is proof based, so this specifically refers to computer proofs. If not, then of course my advice does not apply.
“Sorry if I’m too harsh, but it seems to me that you are trying to do things the wrong way: get reputation first, do awesome things later. It’s the other way round: do something awesome, then maybe advertise it a bit, people will notice and maybe remember, and then they will give more weight to your later opinions.”
I can see how it’s confusing that I may have suggested I wanted to do this wrong order for myself—I was asking the second question for someone else, actually, who has put in a lot of time/effort to build up lots of ideas/share them on this forum but has gotten very little traction.