(I got nerd-sniped by trying to develop a short description of what I do. The following is my stream of thought)
+1 to replacing “build a robust theory” with “get deconfused,” and with replacing “agency” with “intelligence/optimization,” although I think it is even better with all three. I don’t think “powerful” or “general-purpose” do very much for the tagline.
When I say what I do to someone (e.g. at a reunion) I say something like “I work in AI safety, by doing math/philosophy to try to become less confused about agency/intelligence/optimization.” (I dont think I actually have said this sentence, but I have said things close.)
I specifically say it with the slashes and not “and,” because I feel like it better conveys that there is only one thing that is hard to translate, but could be translated as “agency,” “intelligence,” or “optimization.”
I think it is probably better to also replace the word “about” with the word “around” for the same reason.
I wish I had a better word for “do.” “Study” is wrong. “Invent” and “discover” both seem wrong, because it is more like “invent/discover”, but that feels like it is overusing the slashes. Maybe “develop”? I think I like “invent” best. (Note that not knowing whether to say “invent” or “discover” is an example of being confused around agency/intelligence/optimization).
I also think I’ll replace “try to become” with “make myself.”
So, that leads me to “I invent math/philosophy to make myself less confused around agency/intelligence/optimization.”
I have no idea what to do with the first part. The first part feels political. In practice, I often say something like “I work in AI safety (so like trying to prevent the robot apocalypse) by...”, and I often try to make it boring and just say “AI safety,” depending on whether the audience is such that I want them to get the takeaway “Scott has a weird and mathy job that may or may not be about saving the world” vs I want them to bite on the agency part and talk to me about it.
I also think I jump sometimes between saying alignment, sometimes saying safety, and sometimes saying X-risk, and I am not sure why. I should probably pick one. For some reason I feel much less invested in getting the first half right. Maybe that is just because it is fun to say the robot apocalypse thing, and if I think too hard about it I will realize that is a bad idea.
(I got nerd-sniped by trying to develop a short description of what I do. The following is my stream of thought)
+1 to replacing “build a robust theory” with “get deconfused,” and with replacing “agency” with “intelligence/optimization,” although I think it is even better with all three. I don’t think “powerful” or “general-purpose” do very much for the tagline.
When I say what I do to someone (e.g. at a reunion) I say something like “I work in AI safety, by doing math/philosophy to try to become less confused about agency/intelligence/optimization.” (I dont think I actually have said this sentence, but I have said things close.)
I specifically say it with the slashes and not “and,” because I feel like it better conveys that there is only one thing that is hard to translate, but could be translated as “agency,” “intelligence,” or “optimization.”
I think it is probably better to also replace the word “about” with the word “around” for the same reason.
I wish I had a better word for “do.” “Study” is wrong. “Invent” and “discover” both seem wrong, because it is more like “invent/discover”, but that feels like it is overusing the slashes. Maybe “develop”? I think I like “invent” best. (Note that not knowing whether to say “invent” or “discover” is an example of being confused around agency/intelligence/optimization).
I also think I’ll replace “try to become” with “make myself.”
So, that leads me to “I invent math/philosophy to make myself less confused around agency/intelligence/optimization.”
I have no idea what to do with the first part. The first part feels political. In practice, I often say something like “I work in AI safety (so like trying to prevent the robot apocalypse) by...”, and I often try to make it boring and just say “AI safety,” depending on whether the audience is such that I want them to get the takeaway “Scott has a weird and mathy job that may or may not be about saving the world” vs I want them to bite on the agency part and talk to me about it.
I also think I jump sometimes between saying alignment, sometimes saying safety, and sometimes saying X-risk, and I am not sure why. I should probably pick one. For some reason I feel much less invested in getting the first half right. Maybe that is just because it is fun to say the robot apocalypse thing, and if I think too hard about it I will realize that is a bad idea.