I don’t think not going to an elite college has much at all to do with someone’s ability to contribute to technical alignment research. If they are a fantastic programmer that is an indicator of some valuable skills. Not the only indicator, and if someone isn’t a fantastic programmer but interested in alignment, I don’t think they should automatically count themselves out.
The question of whether someone could get a job in alignment right now is very uncertain though. It’s a very volatile situation since the implosion of FTX this past week and the leadership resignation from Future Fund, which had been a big source of funding for AI safety projects. Funding in AI alignment will likely be much more constrained at least for the next few months.
I hope technical alignment doesn’t permanently lose people because of the (hopefully) temporary loss of funds. The CS student looking for a job who would like to go to alignment might instead be lost forever to big tech because she couldn’t get an alignment job.
I don’t think not going to an elite college has much at all to do with someone’s ability to contribute to technical alignment research. If they are a fantastic programmer that is an indicator of some valuable skills. Not the only indicator, and if someone isn’t a fantastic programmer but interested in alignment, I don’t think they should automatically count themselves out.
The question of whether someone could get a job in alignment right now is very uncertain though. It’s a very volatile situation since the implosion of FTX this past week and the leadership resignation from Future Fund, which had been a big source of funding for AI safety projects. Funding in AI alignment will likely be much more constrained at least for the next few months.
I hope technical alignment doesn’t permanently lose people because of the (hopefully) temporary loss of funds. The CS student looking for a job who would like to go to alignment might instead be lost forever to big tech because she couldn’t get an alignment job.