I think this is sort of right, but, if you think big labs have wrong worldmodels about what should be useful, it’s not that helpful to produce work “they think is useful”, but isn’t actually that helpful. (i.e. if you have a project that is 90% likely to be used by a lab, but ~0% likely to reduce x-risk, this isn’t obviously better than a project that is 30% likely to be used by a lab if you hustle/convince them, but would actually reduce x-risk if you succeeded.)
I do think it’s correct to have some model of how your research will actually get used (which I expect to involve some hustling/persuasion if it involves new paradigms)
I think this is sort of right, but, if you think big labs have wrong worldmodels about what should be useful, it’s not that helpful to produce work “they think is useful”, but isn’t actually that helpful. (i.e. if you have a project that is 90% likely to be used by a lab, but ~0% likely to reduce x-risk, this isn’t obviously better than a project that is 30% likely to be used by a lab if you hustle/convince them, but would actually reduce x-risk if you succeeded.)
I do think it’s correct to have some model of how your research will actually get used (which I expect to involve some hustling/persuasion if it involves new paradigms)