Life Choice: Should Someone Highly Interested in AGI Research Jeopardize Their Existing Career to Pursue It?

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Tyler Mills’s avatar

Option 2: Go on hiatus from the day job/career, and focus on creative pursuits and research, full-time, for some number of months (duration perhaps depending on job opportunities).

Battle tested
Dennis Hackethal’s avatar

One rule of thumb financial advisors have told me in the past is to have enough cash on hand to last at least six months without an income.

If you don’t, quitting your job right now could be a bad idea, and your first priority should be to build enough runway.

(This is not financial advice – follow at your own risk.)

Criticism of #3639Criticized1
Tyler Mills’s avatar

Agreed, and this is doable.

Criticism of #3764
Dennis Hackethal’s avatar

This isn’t a criticism.

Criticism of #3844Criticized1
Tyler Mills’s avatar

My thought was to negate (criticize) the "if you don't" portion of your comment, which was a criticism of mine. Unrefuted, yours sits as a criticism of the original, but it isn't...
- Go on hiatus?
- No runway = bad
- Do have runway
How should criticisms with conditionals in them be handled? Is this comment a criticism?!

Dennis Hackethal’s avatar

Well, agreement doesn’t sound like criticism. It sounds like agreement!
But I see now that you meant to say – correct me if I’m wrong – that the six-month minimum of reserves won’t be a problem for you. In which case that indeed neutralizes my criticism. I’ll counter-criticize my own.

Dennis Hackethal’s avatar

Tyler is saying the six-month minimum won’t be an issue.

Criticism of #3847