Q1 risks of AI

What risks posed by artificial intelligence do you think most need more people working on them and why?

Basically I believe in your vision and your scientific research. I haven’t had the necessity to go beyond your work. So anything I say will most likely be due to the science and research, that is your website. The risks posed by AI I think are thus:

  • AI taking over manual labor.

    In this case the preparedness of Governments to handle the rapid AI revolution when it happens.

  • AI resulting in the loss of human values, i.e, killing someone

    Lack of people working on this hard problem is definitely troubling.

top career options

What are the top career options you’re currently considering? Briefly write about why each might or might not be the best option.*

We’ll use your answer to this as the agenda for the call. You could answer this by detailing what information would help you decide on which is your best option, or just with pros and cons for each possibility.

I am 27 years old, and a Mechanical Engineer in Netherlands. I wrote a blog post (22k words) at http://agent18.github.io/Summary-before-applying-to-80k.html based on my understanding of things from 80k-hours. Towards the end I present an analysis of all the info I have collected previously. This part is about 2-3k words and presents my arguments and reasoning to choosing Data science. Please have a look if you have time. (Appendix contains the abbreviations used in my blog).

It appears to me that the best ways to save as many lives as possible are: Direct work at EAO’s (Effective Altruism Organizations), Earning-to-give in Investment Banking or by becoming a partner at a Consulting firm donating 50%. Things like starting-up, seem too far-fetched considering my personal fit. As per my research in the above link, I present my top 3 here:

  1. Data Science (DS) for career capital, with focus to get into EAOs like GiveWell and 80000 hrs to maximize impact over lifetime.

The pros are the following: There is a high personal fit. I am confident I can get into the DS industry in the next few months and slowly hard-work my way at getting better in the skills.

It appears that it has high Flexible Career Capital (FCC) according to 80k hours and the skills obtained here: namely problem solving, critical thinking and statistics, could be very useful while trying to make the transition to EAO’s like GiveWell or 80k-hours.

DS seems like a good backup plan, in case working in EAO’s is not a good fit for me. I could still Earn-to-give. In US, a possible 200k$ salary for really skilled people could mean a 100k donation from my side. So this path still holds promise for me.

In addition I should have time to work on other projects and continue to contribute even more, maximizing the impact.

The cons appear to be that working a DS job is not really the Maximum impact I can get. It feels like I am settling for DS. I think I can take on a stronger wind and DS feels like it is not that strong considering alternatives like Management Consulting or starting-up (which do have their drawbacks)

P.S

I have already finished 3/10 courses of the Data Science Specialization on coursera.

  1. Management Consulting(MC) in the Big 3’s and becoming partner

The pros seems to be: Great salary’s in the order of millions in case I become partner. With a 60% donation it seems to have higher impact than working at an EAO. Great learning and FCC is also in MC.

The cons are: The personal fit is not really great for me. The cost of an MBA here in the Netherlands (Rotterdam School Of Management) in case I am unable to get a Scholarship is 50k euros, which is a lot to come up with and I do not want to take loans due to the stress they may cause in case I fail. I can prep and work hard on my GMATs but even then the battle is far from over. The battle to be a partner is a long one, and according to 80k-hours, considering a 50% chance to get into top consulting firms and 12.5% chance to becoming a partner, the personal fit takes a massive hit, notwihstanding other factors which only make the personal fit smaller.

I have not really been exhibiting signs like Tara Macaulay or Rob Mather, who have been people achieving greatness all their life in everything that they do. Over the last 2 years is when I realized what I am supposed to be doing and have considerably upped my ante though.

In case becoming a Partner doesn’t work, the options of going into Direct Work is very poor according to 80k-hours. Although there are exit opportunities to various industries, but as per my calculation, it appears that none of them will beat doing Direct work in an EAO.

  1. Mechanical Design engineering

The personal fit is really there as my education and current job is in the same.

The cons seem to be: I see poor growth opportunities here in Netherlands. And most of the skills I gain seem to be highly domain specific and not useful for working in an EAO. In addition a Data Scientist seems to beat me anyday, salary-wise. According to payscale, one is not more valuable with more experience he has in Mechanical Design and I have also seen colleagues with 20 years of experience who earn not much more than me. This thing does not exist in Data Science according to Payscale.

  1. programming with a focus into Direct work

Programming has a great personal fit for me as I really enjoy it and have some experience in it. I suspect it will take a years’ work to get into. I think it earns similar to Data Science if you are really good.

Compared to Data Science, it does not give me the skills that would be necessary to go into Direct Work. I thus think Data Science beats this career path as well.

How can we help?

I would like 80k-hours to review my arguments for each career plan, point out potential flaws, discuss other opportunities that I might have missed out on. I suspect I might have missed something related to consulting. I am afraid I am settling down for something simpler, when I should be doing much much more and I can. Other questions are:

How are the opportunities for Direct work from consulting? When I am I “too old” to start an MBA? Is doing an MBA in Netherlands a path to becoming partner and earning money in millions?

What are your 1-2 most impressive achievements?*

  1. I got 98.96 percentile in a competitive exam in India called GATE for which I prepared for a year. 110,000 people wrote the exam and I secured a rank of 1161. I was the only one from my College to score such a rank.

  2. I am the first international chairman since 30 years for the study association in my school in Netherlands. Although I am an introvert, I am still quite social and had some leadership experience which allowed me to become the chairman, the face of the study association.

  3. I recently saved the company I work for in money and time in the order of 40k€, by proposing and investigating an alternate solution when I was not really expected to do so.

  4. Ability to work in previously unknown problems and learn quickly:

  • Within the first 2 months I was made to handle customer support for clients in France, and my boss was very impressed at how well I handled the completely unknown task and suggested that I exceeded expectations, in my evaluation.

  • My boss, frequently throws me in unknown waters to see how I fare and is now convinced, as I am the go-to-guy for troubleshooting problems in my team, (even if I have very little knowledge about the module)

  • My internship coordinators in NXP Semiconductors said that the project I was working on was expected to go be a thesis (7 months), but I finished it in 3 months.

Tell us about your any interest or involvement you’ve had in EA

Tell us about any interest or involvement you’ve had in effective altruism.

For example, what do you think of the ideas? Have you been to any events? When did you first hear about it? What content related to effective altruism do you read? If you haven’t heard of ‘effective altruism’ before, that’s fine too.

  1. How it all started

My friend (www.pradeep90.github.io) is the one who explained to me about Peter Singer and his “Famine, Affluence and Morality”, 3-4 years back. 1 year back, I spent many hours working on understanding if I should get into Altruism or not. I wrote many thousand words to get an understanding of what is the thing that I should be doing. In the end, it was clear, it hurts to see someone in pain in front of me. My heuristics and biases are incapable of feeling pain if I can’t see or hear the pain. But, that does not mean I should not take action. It hurts to see people in distress, and not taking action when I clearly can, seems cruel or not rational.

  1. I am serious about Effective Altruism

With my friends’ help, I am happy to say I am currently giving 10% of my gross salary (4k€/year) to GiveWell now. I know this is a small amount, but I believe this is a start. I am frugal with my expenditure. I don’t consume or buy things that are more than my necessity; No Xbox, no car, no new iPad, no new cellphone. Money has a very high value for me now. In my minds eye, I see myself donating everything I can, in the near future. 50% is surely a goal.

Every week I try to spend ~25 hrs in addition to my work, on blogging, learning and improving skills for the future, to serve better.

  1. Sources of info

Other sources I have read are Eliezer Yudkowsky’s blog, Less wrong, OvercomingBias. I have spent many hours reading and understanding articles on that website. Another blog I frequently visit to learn is that of my friend (www.pradeep90.github.io).

I have read extensively the 80k hour career guide over and over to understand and write my 22k word essay to clarify my thinking on the career step I need to take next.

  1. Final remarks

There is nothing more I would want to do than talk about EA 24x7 and create huge amounts of Impact. What Peter Singer said in “Famine, Affluence and Morality, is everything that encompasses what we should be doing. Sometimes its hard with motivation to keep grinding everyday. But that’s where the community and friends comes into play.

I am young and I work as hard as it takes. I just want to make sure I am on the hardest achievable path for the benefit of mankind and all the people and animals who are less fortunate than me. By my estimation saving a 1000 lives over my lifetime might be possible if I work at an Effective Altruism Organization, and in case I am unable to I hope to atleast get to the point of donating 50%.

I very much appreciate your reading of my application. I would be overjoyed to speak to one of ya’ll regarding the direction that will create the maximum impact over my 80000hrs journey.

Thank You so much for everything.