I think that “There are many talented people who want to work on AI alignment, but are doing something else instead.” is likely to be true. I met at least 2 talented people who tried to get into AI Safety but who weren’t able to because open positions / internships were too scarce. One of them at least tried hard (i.e applied for many positions and couldn’t find one (scarcity), despite the fact that he was one of the top french students in ML). If there was money / positions, I think that there are chances that he would work on AI alignment independently. Connor Leahy in one of his podcasts mentions something similar aswell.
I want to point out that cashing out “talented” might be tricky. My observation is that talent for technical alignment work is not implied/caused by talent in maths and/or ML. It’s not bad to have any of this, but I can think of many incredible people in maths/ML I know who seem way less promising to me than some person with the right mindset and approach.
I think that “There are many talented people who want to work on AI alignment, but are doing something else instead.” is likely to be true. I met at least 2 talented people who tried to get into AI Safety but who weren’t able to because open positions / internships were too scarce. One of them at least tried hard (i.e applied for many positions and couldn’t find one (scarcity), despite the fact that he was one of the top french students in ML). If there was money / positions, I think that there are chances that he would work on AI alignment independently.
Connor Leahy in one of his podcasts mentions something similar aswell.
That’s the impression I have.
I want to point out that cashing out “talented” might be tricky. My observation is that talent for technical alignment work is not implied/caused by talent in maths and/or ML. It’s not bad to have any of this, but I can think of many incredible people in maths/ML I know who seem way less promising to me than some person with the right mindset and approach.