That is commonly given advice, and it makes sense. When you are starting out you don’t know what you don’t know and can’t see the flaws with your own ideas. But on the other hand, coming up with your own ideas is its own skill that may not be trained well by only learning from other peoples experience. It’s hard to say. I suppose the obvious ideal is to practice coming up with your own ideas and have experienced mentors to critique them.
What kinds of things do you have in mind when you say “get more experience”? I am applying to fellowships but haven’t been accepted to any yet. I don’t want to do more ML work that doesn’t focus on AI alignment if I can help it. I was considering writing some literature reviews. There are also some papers I would like to try replicating.
But if I’m being honest the things that feels most valuable to me is working on NDISP, OISs, and Maat, or finding other, similar enough projects and contributing to them. I guess I’m gambling with the time I have to focus on these things and I need to accept that if I’m deciding to focus on projects I think will be valuable but other people don’t see the value in, then I’ll have to keep focusing on them without financial or moral support, and accept the consequences for doing so.
That is commonly given advice, and it makes sense. When you are starting out you don’t know what you don’t know and can’t see the flaws with your own ideas. But on the other hand, coming up with your own ideas is its own skill that may not be trained well by only learning from other peoples experience. It’s hard to say. I suppose the obvious ideal is to practice coming up with your own ideas and have experienced mentors to critique them.
What kinds of things do you have in mind when you say “get more experience”? I am applying to fellowships but haven’t been accepted to any yet. I don’t want to do more ML work that doesn’t focus on AI alignment if I can help it. I was considering writing some literature reviews. There are also some papers I would like to try replicating.
But if I’m being honest the things that feels most valuable to me is working on NDISP, OISs, and Maat, or finding other, similar enough projects and contributing to them. I guess I’m gambling with the time I have to focus on these things and I need to accept that if I’m deciding to focus on projects I think will be valuable but other people don’t see the value in, then I’ll have to keep focusing on them without financial or moral support, and accept the consequences for doing so.