For me personally, an important contributor to day-to-day motivation is just finding research intrinsically fun—impact on the future is more something I have to consciously consider when making high-level plans. I think moving towards more concrete and empirical work did have benefits on personal enjoyment just because making clear progress is fun to me independently of whether it’s going to be really important (though I think there’ve also been some downsides to enjoyment because I do quite like thinking about theory and “big ideas” compared to some of the schlep involved in experiments).
I don’t think my views overall make my work more enjoyable than at the start of my PhD. Part of this is the day-to-day motivation being sort of detached from that anyway like I mentioned. But also, from what I recall now (and this matches the vibe of some things I privately wrote then), my attitude 1.5 years ago was closer to that expressed in We choose to align AI than feeling really pessimistic.
(I feel like I might still not represent what you’re saying quite right, but hopefully this is getting closer.)
ETA: To be clear, I do think if I had significantly more doomy views than now or 1.5 years ago, at some point that would affect how rewarding my work feels. (And I think that’s a good thing to point out, though of course not a sufficient argument for such views in its own right.)
Oh I see, I indeed misunderstood your point then.
For me personally, an important contributor to day-to-day motivation is just finding research intrinsically fun—impact on the future is more something I have to consciously consider when making high-level plans. I think moving towards more concrete and empirical work did have benefits on personal enjoyment just because making clear progress is fun to me independently of whether it’s going to be really important (though I think there’ve also been some downsides to enjoyment because I do quite like thinking about theory and “big ideas” compared to some of the schlep involved in experiments).
I don’t think my views overall make my work more enjoyable than at the start of my PhD. Part of this is the day-to-day motivation being sort of detached from that anyway like I mentioned. But also, from what I recall now (and this matches the vibe of some things I privately wrote then), my attitude 1.5 years ago was closer to that expressed in We choose to align AI than feeling really pessimistic.
(I feel like I might still not represent what you’re saying quite right, but hopefully this is getting closer.)
ETA: To be clear, I do think if I had significantly more doomy views than now or 1.5 years ago, at some point that would affect how rewarding my work feels. (And I think that’s a good thing to point out, though of course not a sufficient argument for such views in its own right.)