TL;DR:
I’m a 19-year-old college freshman in Taiwan, and I can't decide between double majoring in dentistry and CS(which takes 8 years) or single major in CS(takes only 4 years). I am already deeply committed to AI safety and read widely, but I lack people who can sanity-check my reasoning. I am looking for someone willing to occasionally discuss with me online, even asynchronously—no time pressure at all.

Hello everyone,

My name is Jack, a 19-year-old freshman in a Taiwanese university. Before, my family had always expected me to be a dentist or doctor (the dental/medical program takes 8 years. In Taiwan, dentistry and medicine are both an undergraduate entry system and students receive a dentist license after completing the 8-year curriculum. The college and dental/medical school are combined as a 8 year dentistry/medical major.

I identify more with negative utilitarianism, so I hope to devote my career to s-risk reduction, especially AI s-risks.

I am currently deciding between 2 main choices: whether I should double major in dentistry and CS (I consider dentistry over medicine now because dentistry doesn't need to complete 4 years of residency, can begin practicing and earn a full income 4 years earlier than doctors. Also the hourly wage of dentists is almost equal to average doctors in US and Taiwan. Nevertheless I'm uncertain, it's possible that double majoring in medcine+CS is actually better) or majoring only in CS (which would take 4 years instead of 8). I am not worried about burnout, but the 4 years time cost is significant. At present, I lean around 70% toward switching to CS only, because either dentistry or medical training seems much less relevant to AI-related s-risks, but I am still genuinely unsure about the decision.

Below I summarize my main reasoning (I also have longer decision documents with more detailed frameworks, if anyone would like to read them).

Key question: How feasible is it to work on s-risk while employed outside EA-aligned organizations?

As a freshman, I still lack deep expertise and intuition in AI. Despite reading nearly all relevant materials on 80,000 Hours, the AI Alignment Blue Dot course, EA Forum, LessWrong, CLR, CRS, Tomasik/Baumann/Vinding, and spending hundreds of hours studying, thinking, and discussing with different LLMs, I am only around 80% confident (not 90–100%) that AI s-risks outweigh global health work.

That said, we always need to decide under uncertainty, I think being 80% confident that AI s-risks are more important than human disease suffering is enough for decision. Ideally, if we don't consider income, single majoring in CS is probably the best.

However, in reality I still need to consider:

• job accessibility and income stability
• the likelihood of being able to do genuinely altruistic work while employed outside EA

Although EA commonly says “talent is the bottleneck, not funding,” in reality it is quite hard to get full-time positions or independent research grants in EA unless one is truly exceptional. Therefore, I may have to work in non-EA companies for most of my career.

My concern is that in such settings, I may not be able to do meaningfully altruistic work:

• For WAS, almost no non-EA jobs involve directly reducing wild-animal suffering.
• Academia research might allow it, but becoming a professor is extremely competitive.
• For AI safety, many corporate AI positions are still not closely connected to reducing s-risk (e.g., preventing digital suffering). Frontier AI labs and governments seem to only care about near-term AI ethics and extinction risks

My worry is a scenario where I major in CS, graduate, can hardly find EA jobs and grantings, then end up working in non-EA positions until retirement without ever contributing meaningfully to the problems I care about.

An alternative strategy would be: Become a dentist(or doctor) around 10-20 years, save most of the income(like $150000 a year) and build financial security(Also, in Taiwan the medical school tuition is really cheap, so you won't be in debt at all after graduating). During off-work time and after retirement(If I become a dentist, I can probably retire earlier), I'll become an independent AI s-risks researcher, doing researches that are the most altruistic, by using my savings to self-fund myself, maintain my life if I later have years difficult to secure altruistic job opportunities or EA research funding.

But this approach costs 4+ years of additional dentistry training and delays meaningful contribution until later than 2033 instead of 2029, which is a large opportunity cost. It'd be much more ideal to work in a non-EA world but also contribute altruistically.

However, I genuinely do not know which non-EA careers can effectively reduce s-risks. For example, there may be some opportunities in AI governance, but it seems difficult to directly shape laws or policies aimed at reducing digital suffering, since governments and companies currently lack strong incentives to prioritize this issue. As a result, any impact in such roles might be indirect. Moreover, AI governance appears less neglected than many s-risk topics that independent EA researchers focus on.

My current estimate is that working in AI governance in a non-EA context might achieve only about 20–40% of the impact compared to being an independent researcher working directly on the most effective s-risk topics/interventions. Though, there are probably many other non-EA world career choices that can effectively reduce AI s-risks that I don't know. I'll be happy if you can share these job opportunities with me.

Why I am seeking discussion partners

 Although I'm having a really tough time deciding if I should do a double major or not, I'll keep working on it with patience and persistence. It's a crucial decision for my life because double majoring in dentistry lead to 4-years of opportunity cost (Double majoring in other subjects probably won't take 4 years more, but in dentistry or medicine it'd definitely take 4 years more)  

There are basically no active EA groups in Taiwan right now, so I lack people who can provide feedback of my thoughts. I am hoping to find someone (not necessarily an expert in AI s-risk specifically, opinions about general career decisions would also be valuable) who is willing to discuss with me occasionally.

Although I lack deep expertise,  I can contribute thoughtful reasoning and outside-view criticisms perspectives. I have talked deeply with a few experts before, and most of them thought it's really a beneficial experience for both of us, but many of those people are currently too busy to continue discussions.

Final request

If anyone is willing to discuss—by text, voice, or any platform you prefer—I would be extremely grateful. Any level of commitment is welcome. Even a single 10-minute message every few weeks would already help a lot. There is absolutely no obligation; stopping discussion at any time is completely fine. I am perfectly comfortable with slow, asynchronous conversation whenever you happen to have time.

If you're open to talking, please either comment below,  message me on EA Forum, or email me at: carlosgpt500@gmail.com

Thank you very much for reading.