This is a special post for quick takes by Jen baik. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
The "Desperate" AI Safety Talent Bottleneck is deeply misleading. Please.stop.
I worked at Google.
Google does not tell applicants that there is a talent bottleneck and they are desperately hiring. They say "we're cool, join us!"
I didn't get into Harvard.
Harvard does not tell applicants that they are desperately seeking students. I am not misled.
I've gotten rejected from countless AI Safety organizations.
AI Safety tells applicants - we are in desperate need of talent (operators/generalists)! Please join us!
I've coached 70+ aspiring career pivoters on navigating the ecosystem. A common theme is the dejection & disappointment from all this rejection. Because of this false marketing, I am the one picking up the pieces to calibrate professionals on how difficult, competitive, and picky organizations are, how to build context, and how to endure the marathon, which is like any other job hunt.
Please.stop.
Some alternatives:
- We are an exciting, growing organization and you should apply for our roles!
- Many people are excited to work for us - here are qualities of candidates we're especially excited about.
- EA roles are competitive, and we would still love to see your application.
Relevant posts:
- https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/B6d8Wzk4gNzHsXvdi/ai-safety-is-extremely-bottlenecked-on-grantmakers?commentId=n2Rd7RR4y9EnKP42F
- https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/b82SLXwEHRCs3TFJA/why-experienced-professionals-fail-to-land-high-impact-roles
- https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/jmbP9rwXncfa32seH/after-one-year-of-applying-for-ea-jobs-it-is-really-really
Do you think the marketing is false because:
- The roles are getting more than enough qualified, competent applicants?
- The cause area of AI safety is saturated with talent?
- AI safety is not impactful enough to justify claims like "this cause area is particularly important to scale"?
I'm not sure the analogies to Google or Harvard are useful here. These organizations are driven by profits/enrollments, not by impact. They likely are far less picky than AI safety orgs because they are very big and don't require the incredibly niche skill-sets and mission alignment of AI safety roles. Google can also pay a ton and both Harvard and Google are conventionally high status, attracting a ton of applicants naturally. One might argue that there is a moral imperative to scale AI safety fast in a way that doesn't apply to Harvard or Google on the whole. Note that the GDM interpretability team and Harvard AI safety team have called for urgency, independent of Google's general messaging.
None of this is to justify the hiring practices at AI safety organizations. I think plenty of operations roles (e.g., HR, finance, legal, marketing, facilities) don't require deep mission alignment or specialist AI safety skills. At MATS, the hiring rate for ops roles is ~2%; there are just a ton of applicants! Obviously, roles that depend on specialist AI safety skills, knowledge, or connections will be more selective, as well as leadership or independently operating roles, which greatly benefit from deep mission alignment.
In defence of the call for urgency in combination with the low acceptance rates:
- AI safety seems really impactful and urgent;
- Marginally better talent can have outsized impacts in a fast-growing field;
- Some roles (e.g., grantmakers) are very hard to hire for as the necessary skills are very rare;
- Emphasizing the important and urgency of AI safety will allow more samples from the distribution of talent, which means better-staffed roles and higher likelihood of finding rare talent.
I think it's deeply unfortunate if a lot of people are getting turned off AI safety as a cause area because they can't break into the field. I also think the calls for urgency are justified on impact grounds. Maybe there are low-cost ways to help rejected applicants feel better? I like the idea of publishing application statistics or offering tailored advice to rejected applicants, though the latter is really expensive
It seems like a lot of people are rejected by Harvard or Google, but are able to pivot to other Ivy League colleges or FAANG companies. At worst, there are second-tier colleges and companies to apply to. I'm not sure this is the case in AI safety, as the field is still very small (2-4k FTEs). It seems like the best thing many rejected applicants can do is apply for a CS PhD or work in a regular tech company to build their skills, which can be deeply unsatisfying for impact-driven people who think AGI is near (as I do).
But EA orgs (in safety) are hungry to hire.
Unlike Harvard and Google, most AI safety orgs are not headcount limited accepting the top X candidates. They would happily accept more candiates. It's not a contradiction to have a high hiring bar and also be desperate to hire people above that bar.
Definitely could be useful for orgs to be more upfront about their hiring bars
I am reminded of the trend where people would post a university's "everyone belongs here" inclusion statement next to the rejection letter they got from that university.
More seriously: I often talk to people who overestimate the extent to which AI safety "experts" have things under control, and also those with imposter syndrome. I worry that the alternatives you list don't really work well for this audience, and I'm curious if you have other suggestions (or disagree with this claim)?
I think it's the combination of framing the roles as being desperate to hire while not being straightforward about what the requirements are that feels bad. And to be clear, it's not so much the technical requirements which are underspecified, though those can be, its probably more the soft requirements. If you discover EA online through personal ethical development you might be mistaken into thinking it is less elite and thus less credentialist than it really is.
Other comments replying to this post somehow give off the connotation that getting into Harvard or Google isn't that big of a deal, or that if you fail one of those, you probably will get into another FAANG or Ivy. To be clear, I'm not maligning those commenters, just noting how even passing comments on quick takes seem to come from a different universe of achievement and social connection than myself and my imagined mid-career-transitioners that this post is about.
If you are reading this and you recognize that you wouldn't get into an Ivy league school or a FAANG role, that should give you pause when considering doing a career transition to an EA org. If you want to talk about how to maintain your ethical values and your desire to live a high impact life given your background, I'm happy to lend an ear. To be clear, I'm not saying it is impossible, but, given that your time and energy is valuable and finite, I would encourage you not to be naïve about it.
These orgs have a high talent bar and only a few open positions in absolute terms. If you don't have the right educational or career background, you won't be legible to the resource constrained hiring teams. They are going to go with who they know. It's only rational.
I would encourage you to (a) try to build some local community/friendships of people who share your values, (b) consider earn-to-give, and (c) recognize that if you want to do direct work, it is probably a long-game for you. I decided it wasn't to my comparative advantage. But I have friends to talk to, I did change jobs to something I like more, and I can look in the mirror and say I'm doing about as good as I think I can today.
On the hiring front, communicating number of applicants is good. I also think just being explicit, like listing what level of education is expected (go GiveWell for making clear the junior researcher role expects a Master's Degree back in January), how many applicants applied, would be helpful. Staff bios on the site are also helpful TBH. I scroll those things, see where people went to school or worked, and quickly get a sense of whether it's worth my time to apply.
Wrote this years ago, sad to see it's an ongoing issue. I think there are some hard problems with comms here, but definitely organizations can be doing better than they are.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Khon9Bhmad7v4dNKe/the-cost-of-rejection
I think informing rejected candidates of how many people applied is another quick-win. The only time I've got figures on applicants is when I've got in to a fellowship or role and never when I've been rejected.
So far I've seen:
* Spar Projects with 1/50 applicants and 6/75 applicants accepted. (I've never got in to SPAR but have worked in an office with a SPAR mentor).
* Two fellowships where 20/140 and 15/170 were accepted respectively.
These were all unpaid positions (bar the last one which covered living expenses), I can only imagine applying for paid roles would be even more competitive.
I think having rejected candidates know how competitive these roles/courses/fellowships are would likely reduce the drop-out from the AIS talent pool so would be a win-win for both the applicants and the orgs.
Mox Movie Nights watched Slumdog Millionaire today and it reminded me of the why behind the work. We're not here to EV-max, to gain impact points, to count utils. We're here because the world is unfair, suffering is prolific, and need to find a way through it.
Have @Matt Beard and @Mjreard considered having a child and naming it Matt BrEArdon?
Matt Reardon might actually be the person who counterfactually changed my life more than anyone. So he gets naming rights
What a coincidence! I was just getting annoyed by Financial Times articles that always make up reasons after things happen. It made me realize that most news is exactly what Chomsky calls Manufacturing Consent.
I chatted with an AI about the idea that DNA/RNA arriving on Earth via asteroids is basically a biological Von Neumann machine. So the alien question is actually a strict Existential Risk (X-risk) issue, not a non-pragmatic one.
Also, my first language is Mandarin.
Deleted by Jen baik,
The "Desperate" AI Safety Talent Bottleneck is deeply misleading. Please.stop.
I worked at Google.
Google does not tell applicants that there is a talent bottleneck and they are desperately hiring. They say "we're cool, join us!"
I didn't get into Harvard.
Harvard does not tell applicants that they are desperately seeking students. I am not misled.
I've gotten rejected from countless AI Safety organizations.
AI Safety tells applicants - we are in desperate need of talent (operators/generalists)! Please join us!
I've coached 70+ aspiring career pivoters on navigating the ecosystem. A common theme is the dejection & disappointment from all this rejection. Because of this false marketing, I am the one picking up the pieces to calibrate professionals on how difficult, competitive, and picky organizations are, how to build context, and how to endure the marathon, which is like any other job hunt.
Please.stop.
Some alternatives:
Relevant posts:
Wrote this years ago, sad to see it's an ongoing issue. I think there are some hard problems with comms here, but definitely organizations can be doing better than they are.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Khon9Bhmad7v4dNKe/the-cost-of-rejection