Is he implicitly saying that he offloads some of the filtering work to admissions people at top schools?
I don’t think Critch’s saying that the best way to get his attention is through cold emails backed up by credentials. The whole post is about him not using that as a filter to decide who’s worth his time but that people should create good technical writing to get attention.
Critch’s written somewhere that if you can get into UC Berkeley, he’ll automatically allow you to become his student, because getting into UC Berkeley is a good enough filter.
Where did he say that? Given that he’s working at UC Berkeley I would expect him to treat UC Berkeley students preferentially for reasons that aren’t just about UC Berkeley being able to filter.
It’s natural that you can sign up for one of the classes he teaches at UC Berkeley by being a student of UC Berkeley.
Being enrolled into MIT might be just as hard as being enrolled into UC Berkeley but it doesn’t give you the same access to courses taught at UC Berkeley by it’s faculty.
If you get into one of the following programs at Berkeley:
a PhD program in computer science, mathematics, logic, or statistics, or
a postdoc specializing in cognitive science, cybersecurity, economics, evolutionary biology, mechanism design, neuroscience, or moral philosophy,
… then I will personally help you find an advisor who is supportive of you researching AI alignment, and introduce you to other researchers in Berkeley with related interests.
and also
While my time is fairly limited, I care a lot about this field, and you getting into Berkeley is a reasonable filter for taking time away from my own research to help you kickstart yours.
I don’t think Critch’s saying that the best way to get his attention is through cold emails backed up by credentials. The whole post is about him not using that as a filter to decide who’s worth his time but that people should create good technical writing to get attention.
Critch’s written somewhere that if you can get into UC Berkeley, he’ll automatically allow you to become his student, because getting into UC Berkeley is a good enough filter.
Where did he say that? Given that he’s working at UC Berkeley I would expect him to treat UC Berkeley students preferentially for reasons that aren’t just about UC Berkeley being able to filter.
It’s natural that you can sign up for one of the classes he teaches at UC Berkeley by being a student of UC Berkeley.
Being enrolled into MIT might be just as hard as being enrolled into UC Berkeley but it doesn’t give you the same access to courses taught at UC Berkeley by it’s faculty.
http://acritch.com/ai-berkeley/
and also
Okay, he does speak about using Berkeley as a filter but he doesn’t speak about taking people as his student.
It seems about helping people in UC Berkeley to connect with other people in UC Berkeley.