If this were a story, there’d be some kind of academy taking in humanity’s top talent and skilling them up in alignment.
Most of the summer fellowships seem focused on finding talent that is immediately useful. And I can see how this is tempting given the vast numbers of experienced and talented folks seeking to enter the space. I’d even go so far as to suggest that the majority of our efforts should probably be focused on finding people who will be useful fairly quickly.
Nonetheless, it does seem as though there should be at least one program that aims to find the best talent (even if they aren’t immediately useful) and which provides them with the freedom to explore and the intellectual environment in which to do so.
I wish I could articulate my intuition behind this clearer, but the best I can say for now is that my intuition is that continuing to scale existing fellowships would likely provide decreasing marginal returns and such an academy wouldn’t be subject to this because it would be providing a different kind of talent.
Upskilling bright young people “to do alignment” is tricky to do in a systematic way, since bright young people want / need to do whatever they’re curious about.
Nonetheless, it does seem as though there should be at least one program that aims to find the best talent (even if they aren’t immediately useful) and which provides them with the freedom to explore and the intellectual environment in which to do so.
I think SPARC and its decedents are something like this.
If this were a story, there’d be some kind of academy taking in humanity’s top talent and skilling them up in alignment.
Most of the summer fellowships seem focused on finding talent that is immediately useful. And I can see how this is tempting given the vast numbers of experienced and talented folks seeking to enter the space. I’d even go so far as to suggest that the majority of our efforts should probably be focused on finding people who will be useful fairly quickly.
Nonetheless, it does seem as though there should be at least one program that aims to find the best talent (even if they aren’t immediately useful) and which provides them with the freedom to explore and the intellectual environment in which to do so.
I wish I could articulate my intuition behind this clearer, but the best I can say for now is that my intuition is that continuing to scale existing fellowships would likely provide decreasing marginal returns and such an academy wouldn’t be subject to this because it would be providing a different kind of talent.
Upskilling bright young people “to do alignment” is tricky to do in a systematic way, since bright young people want / need to do whatever they’re curious about.
Maybe you’re thinking younger than I was thinking.
I expect you’d mostly want folks who’d already completed an undergraduate degree, with sufficiently talented folks being pulled in earlier.
I think SPARC and its decedents are something like this.
How long does SPARC go for?