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by JDLC
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80K recently shifted their strategic prioritise to focus on AGI: 80,000 Hours is shifting its strategic approach to focus more on AGI — EA Forum

As a uni group organiser, 80K advising has been my 'go to' recommendation for people who want careers advice beyond what I can provide. This has been a pretty universal recommendation regardless of career / cause area interests. (I'm aware this might always have been an incorrect/overgeneralised approach)

Considering this strategic shift, should I be more careful / less universal about recommending 80K advising to group members? For example, for people who are heavily set on Animal Welfare careers, I don't want to suggest 80K advising if that's not 80Ks focus, and therefore either result in a less useful conversation or rejection from advising.

Key Questions:

  1. When should I recommend 80K advising to student group members? Should it be purely those who wish to discuss AGI, students who are very undecided on careers/causes, or students who are uninterested in AGI careers?
    1. I'd particularly appreciate thoughts/responses from those 'in the know', for example 80K team or CEA Groups team
  2. Where else should I be recommending further careers advice?
    1. I'm aware of Animal Advocacy Careers and ProbablyGood (although they seem to have paused advising for now)
    2. I'm unsure if there are any other good 1-1 providers. Especially Biosecurity-focussed groups.
  3. Are there any recommendations for changing recommendations about 80K website content?
    1. My assumption is no. The content will remain up and remain excellent, so I assume I should still tell people to read it.

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NickLaing

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I would say especially for advising the simple answer is no. 80k's opinion here might also be helpful, but since all roads here lead to AI, I would advise career advising with 80k if
1. Someone is already leaning heavily towards AI work
2. Someone is undecided but you are fairly confident AI work might be a good fit and you want to angle them in that direction.

Either way you would need to be transparent and tell the person that they will advise people about only AI based career options, not other things.

Neel Nanda

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I would say yes, but frame it as "they can help you think about AGI focused options and if they might be a good fit - but obviously there are also other options worth considering!"

Huon Porteous

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Thanks for your questions! I run the advising team at 80,000 Hours, and I’m glad for the opportunity to clarify. 

On question 1, I think there’s no definitive answer here, but this information might help you decide: 

  • We still plan to talk to people considering work on any of our top problems (which includes animal welfare), and I believe we still have a lot of useful advice on how to pursue careers in these areas. 
  • However, we will be applying a higher bar to applicants that aren’t primarily interested in working on AI. 

The application only asks two substantive questions. It asks for the problem areas the applicant thinks are most pressing and for a sketch of career options they’re considering. I think that answering these questions is a worthwhile activity for anyone trying to plan an impactful career, regardless of whether or not they’re accepted.

That said, I know that there are costs to being rejected. I was rejected from 80k advising back when I was organising my university group! In general, I struggled a lot with rejection when I was trying to find impactful work. Some of these rejections sapped all the momentum from job searches, and I suspect slowed down my trajectory substantially. (I’d also love to plug Luisa’s excellent article on coping with career rejection!)

Ultimately, if I were in your shoes, I would encourage and support people in answering for themselves which problems they find most pressing, and what that implies about which careers they should consider. 

Having answered those, and provided they’re interested in the top problems we list, the application for 80k advising will be very quick. If rejection isn’t too worrying, then they should definitely spend the 10 minutes needed to apply in my opinion

On question 3, that sounds right to me! 

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Probably Good11
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ProbablyGood (although they seem to have paused advising for now)

Thanks for the mention! We're planning to relaunch and expand our advising services in around 2-3 weeks, alongside some other exciting changes in the near future, so please feel free to apply for advising and refer people who could benefit from it.

And, if you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to get in touch any time!

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Alicia Pollard8
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These could also be of use: 

Where is your group based? We currently offer career calls for students in London, but because of increasing demand I'm considering starting a student career advising programme. We may be able to fill some of this gap - depending on how things go!

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