If funding were available, the Centre for Effective Altruism would consider hiring someone to work closely with Prof Nick Bostrom to provide anything and everything he needs to be more productive. Bostrom is obviously the Director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, and author of Superintelligence, the best guide yet to the possible risks posed by artificial intelligence.
Nobody has yet confirmed they will fund this role, but we are nevertheless interested in getting expressions of interest from suitable candidates.
The list of required characteristics is hefty, and the position would be a challenging one:
- Willing to commit to the role for at least a year, and preferably several
- Able to live and work in Oxford during this time
- Conscientious and discreet
- Trustworthy
- Able to keep flexible hours (some days a lot of work, others not much)
- Highly competent at almost everything in life (for example, organising travel, media appearances, choosing good products, and so on)
- Will not screw up and look bad when dealing with external parties (e.g. media, event organisers, the university)
- Has a good personality 'fit' with Bostrom
- Willing to do some tasks that are not high-status
- Willing to help Bostrom with both his professional and personal life (to free up his attention)
- Can speak English well
- Knowledge of rationality, philosophy and artificial intelligence would also be helpful, and would allow you to also do more work as a research assistant.
The research Bostrom can do is unique; to my knowledge we don't have anyone who has made such significant strides clarifying the biggest risks facing humanity as a whole. As a result, helping increase Bostrom's output by say, 20%, would be a major contribution. This person's work would also help the rest of the Future of Humanity Institute run smoothly.
Thanks for the feedback.
Note it was also the most popular post on the Facebook group (as measured by likes) in almost two weeks, so clearly some other members thought this was a sensible proposal.
I can see how it could come across as 'hero worship', except that Bostrom is indeed a widely-recognised world-leading academic at the highest ranked philosophy department in the world. There are sound reasons to be respectful of his work.
"sexual innuendo"
I can assure you the intended level of sexual innuendo in this ad is less than zero.
In case I wasn't clear, I see nothing wrong with seeking a personal assistant for Bostrom amongst EAs and LessWrongers. Obviously, many people in those groups might be very interested in the job. I'm sure it will be an interesting opportunity for whoever gets it. My objection was to the tone. I'm glad if people didn't find it as alarming as I did, but I was aware of some additional controversy, expressed both publicly in the comments and privately. And of course, there is no downvote on Facebook.
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