I think I do a lot of “engaging with neuroscientists” despite not publishing peer-reviewed neuroscience papers:
I write lots of blog posts intended to be read by neuroscientists, i.e. I will attempt to engage with background assumptions that neuroscientists are likely to have, not assume non-neuroscience background knowledge or jargon, etc.
[To be clear, I also write even more blog posts that are not in that category.]
When one of my blog posts specifically discusses some neuroscientist’s work, I’ll sometimes cold-email them and ask for pre-publication feedback.
When I have questions about a neuroscientist’s paper, I’ll sometimes cold-email them to try to start a chat.
There are a handful of neuroscientists whose work is unusually relevant to AGI capabilities and/or safety (in my opinion), and I’m kinda always on the lookout for excuses to get in touch with them, with some amount of success I think.
Between those things, plus word-of-mouth, I feel pretty confident that WAY more neuroscientists are familiar with my detailed ideas than is typical given that I’ve been in the field full-time for only 2 years (and spend barely half my time on neuroscience anyway), and also WAY more than the counterfactual where I spend the same amount of time on outreach / communication but do so mainly via publishing peer-reviewed neuroscience papers. Like, sometimes I’ll read a peer-reviewed paper in detail, and talk to the author, and the author remarks that I might be the first person to have ever read it in detail apart from their own close collaborators and the referees.
You’re very unusually proactive, and I think the median member of the community would be far better served if they were more engaged the way you are. Doing that without traditional peer reviewed work is fine, but unusual, and in many ways is more difficult than peer-reviewed publication. And for early career researchers, I think it’s hard to be taken seriously without some more legible record—you have a PhD, but many others don’t.
Speaking for myself…
I think I do a lot of “engaging with neuroscientists” despite not publishing peer-reviewed neuroscience papers:
I write lots of blog posts intended to be read by neuroscientists, i.e. I will attempt to engage with background assumptions that neuroscientists are likely to have, not assume non-neuroscience background knowledge or jargon, etc.
[To be clear, I also write even more blog posts that are not in that category.]
When one of my blog posts specifically discusses some neuroscientist’s work, I’ll sometimes cold-email them and ask for pre-publication feedback.
When I have questions about a neuroscientist’s paper, I’ll sometimes cold-email them to try to start a chat.
There are a handful of neuroscientists whose work is unusually relevant to AGI capabilities and/or safety (in my opinion), and I’m kinda always on the lookout for excuses to get in touch with them, with some amount of success I think.
I got interviewed on a popular podcast in AI-adjacent neuroscience, and I have a 1-hour zoom talk that I give whenever anyone invites me.
Between those things, plus word-of-mouth, I feel pretty confident that WAY more neuroscientists are familiar with my detailed ideas than is typical given that I’ve been in the field full-time for only 2 years (and spend barely half my time on neuroscience anyway), and also WAY more than the counterfactual where I spend the same amount of time on outreach / communication but do so mainly via publishing peer-reviewed neuroscience papers. Like, sometimes I’ll read a peer-reviewed paper in detail, and talk to the author, and the author remarks that I might be the first person to have ever read it in detail apart from their own close collaborators and the referees.
You’re very unusually proactive, and I think the median member of the community would be far better served if they were more engaged the way you are. Doing that without traditional peer reviewed work is fine, but unusual, and in many ways is more difficult than peer-reviewed publication. And for early career researchers, I think it’s hard to be taken seriously without some more legible record—you have a PhD, but many others don’t.