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

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Tyler Mills’s avatar
Tyler MillsOP·​#3639·​

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-testedLinked to by #3919
Zakery Mizell’s avatar
Zakery Mizell·​#3782·​·​Criticism

Consider your current balance of working and research.

Could you cut other activities, keep the job, and increase focus on research?

Criticized1*Linked to by #3787
Tyler Mills’s avatar
Tyler MillsOP·​#3819·​·​Criticism

I think I've compressed other activities as much as possible. With the current job, I don't think I can increase focus on research any further. The concerns are over the tradeoffs of leaving the day job (finances, impact to employability, etc.).

Linked to by #3881 and #3894
Dennis Hackethal’s avatar
Dennis Hackethal·​#3834·​·​Criticism

FWIW, if I was hiring, and I was looking at a resume of someone who always ‘played it safe’ and was very concerned about what others think, I wouldn’t hire them. Whereas I would hire someone who takes smart risks and cares about truth over popularity, even if they have a resume ‘gap’.

Criticized1*Linked to by #3894
Tyler Mills’s avatar
Tyler MillsOP·​#3881·​·​Criticism
Only version leading to #3893 (3 total)

Still learning the art of Veritula (my bad for combining ideas in #3819). From the top, this branch seems to be:
Go on hiatus?
- No hiatus, compress activates
----- Yes hiatus, can't compress. No hiatus because resume gap.
--------- No to resume gap -- So YES hiatus. But currently #3834 flows up and flips to a no-hiatus criticism (because I melded a yes and a no idea in one comment, and Dennis criticized the latter).
------------- Yes hiatus via this comment to correct

"It’s best to write only one criticism at a time."
----- Best, or required, to avoid errors?! (or I'm confused)

Dennis Hackethal’s avatar
Dennis Hackethal·​#3893·​

It’s not strictly required – there are cases where joining multiple criticisms into one comment is fine – but I almost always recommend splitting them, especially for beginners.

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