plex

Stop Applying And Get To Work

TL;DR: Figure out what needs doing and do it, don't wait on approval from fellowships or jobs. If you... * Have short timelines * Have been struggling to get into a position in AI safety * Are able to self-motivate your efforts * Have a sufficient financial safety net ... I would recommend changing your personal strategy entirely. I started my full-time AI safety career transitioning process in March 2025. For the first 7 months or so, I heavily prioritized applying for jobs and fellowships. But like for many others trying to "break into the field" and get their "foot in the door", this became quite discouraging. I'm not gonna get into the numbers here, but if you've been applying and getting rejected multiple times during the past year or so, you've probably noticed the number of applicants increasing at a preposterous rate. What this means in practice is that the "entry-level" positions are practically impossible for "entry-level" people to enter. If you're like me and have short timelines, applying, getting better at applying, and applying again, becomes meaningless very fast. You're optimizing for signaling competence rather than actually being competent. Because if you a) have short timelines, and b) are honest with yourself, you would come to the conclusion that immediate, direct action and effect is a priority. If you identify as an impostor... ..applying for things can be especially nerve-wrecking. To me, this seems to be because I'm incentivized to optimize for how I'm going to be perceived. I've found the best antidote for my own impostor-y feelings to be this: Focus on being useful and having direct impact, instead of signaling the ability to (maybe one day) have direct impact. I find it quite comforting that I don't need to be in the spotlight, but instead get to have an influence from the sidelines. I don't need to think about "how does this look" - just "could this work" or "is this helpful". And so I started looking for ways in which

212Nov 23, 2025

plex

Message

I have signed no contracts or agreements whose existence I cannot mention.

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12y

Managed vs Unmanaged Agency

tl;dr: Some subagents are more closely managed, which makes them to an extent instruments of the superagent, giving rise to what looks like instrumental/terminal goals. Selection on trust avoids the difficulties that normally come with this, like inability to do open-ended truth-seeking and free-ranging agency. (reply to Richard Ngo on...

Feb 1848

Enhance Funding Applications: Share Utility Function Over Money (+Tool)

You have more context on your ability to make use of funds than fits into a specific numerical ask.[1] You want to give funders good information, and the natural type-signature for this is a utility function over money - how much good you think you can do with different funding...

Dec 27, 202535

Comet (solstice reading)

This reading will have mild spoilers, so feel free to close your ears and gently hum until I raise my hand if you’re strongly averse, but the extracts chosen should more whet than spoil your appetite. The Comet King from the book Scott Alexander's UNSONG is one of the most...

Nov 30, 202523

Stop Applying And Get To Work

Nov 23, 2025212

Pythia

[CW: Retrocausality, omnicide, philosophy] Alternate format: Talk to this post and its sources Three decades ago a strange philosopher was pouring ideas onto paper in a stimulant-fueled frenzy. He wrote that ‘nothing human makes it out of the near-future’ as techno-capital acceleration sheds its biological bootloader and instantiates itself as...

Nov 7, 202588

LW Reacts pack for Discord/Slack/etc

Edit: Consider using the SVGs from the wiki page. Ever wanted to say Scout Mindset to someone on a chat platform, but didn't want to have to type 13 characters? Or wanted your server to have magically better epistemics because of a few images? The LW Reactions Pack is here...

Oct 24, 202565

Statement on Superintelligence - FLI Open Letter

> We call for a prohibition on the development of superintelligence, not lifted before there is > > 1. broad scientific consensus that it will be done safely and controllably, and > 2. strong public buy-in. Sign on the main website or Eko[1]. 1. ^ Looks like the latter is...

Oct 22, 202559

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LESSWRONG
LW

LESSWRONG
LW

plex

plex

plex

Stop Applying And Get To Work

Pythia

A Rocket–Interpretability Analogy

AISafety.com – Resources for AI Safety

plex

Managed vs Unmanaged Agency

Enhance Funding Applications: Share Utility Function Over Money (+Tool)

Comet (solstice reading)

Stop Applying And Get To Work

Pythia

LW Reacts pack for Discord/Slack/etc

Statement on Superintelligence - FLI Open Letter

Stop Applying And Get To Work

Pythia

A Rocket–Interpretability Analogy

AISafety.com – Resources for AI Safety

Managed vs Unmanaged Agency

Enhance Funding Applications: Share Utility Function Over Money (+Tool)

Comet (solstice reading)

Stop Applying And Get To Work

Pythia

LW Reacts pack for Discord/Slack/etc

Statement on Superintelligence - FLI Open Letter