Note: this post is a (minorly) edited version of a new 80,000 Hours career review.

Progress in AI — while it could be hugely beneficial — comes with significant risks. Risks that we’ve argued could be existential.

But these risks can be tackled.

With further progress in AI safety, we have an opportunity to develop AI for good: systems that are safe, ethical, and beneficial for everyone.

This article explains how you can help.

Summary

Artificial intelligence will have transformative effects on society over the coming decades, and could bring huge benefits — but we also think there’s a substantial risk. One promising way to reduce the chances of an AI-related catastrophe is to find technical solutions that could allow us to prevent AI systems from carrying out dangerous behaviour.

Pros

Opportunity to make a significant contribution to a hugely important area of research
Intellectually challenging and interesting work
The area has a strong need for skilled researchers and engineers, and is highly neglected overall

Cons

Due to a shortage of managers, it’s difficult to get jobs and might take you some time to build the required career capital and expertise
You need a strong quantitative background
It might be very difficult to find solutions
There’s a real risk of doing harm

Key facts on fit

You’ll need a quantitative background and should probably enjoy programming. If you’ve never tried programming, you may be a good fit if you can break problems down into logical parts, generate and test hypotheses, possess a willingness to try out many different solutions, and have high attention to detail.

If you already:

Are a strong software engineer, you could apply for empirical research contributor roles right now (even if you don’t have a machine learning background, although that helps)
Could get into a top 10 machine learning PhD, that would put you on track to become a research lead
Have a very strong maths or theoretical computer science background, you’ll probably be a good fit for theoretical alignment research

Recommended

If you are well suited to this career, it may be the best way for you to have a social impact.

Thanks to Adam Gleave, Jacob Hilton and Rohin Shah for reviewing this article. And thanks to Charlie Rogers-Smith for his help, and his article on the topic — How to pursue a career in technical AI alignment.

Why AI safety technical research is high impact

As we’ve argued, in ...

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