[Career review] “Should you work at a frontier AI company?” by Arden Koehler, the 80,000 Hours team

In a nutshell: If you want to help reduce catastrophic risks from AI, working at a frontier AI company is an important option to consider, but the impact is hard to assess. These roles often come with great potential for career growth, and many could be (or lead to) highly impactful ways of reducing the chances of an AI-related catastrophe. However, there's also a risk of doing substantial harm, and there are roles you should probably avoid.

Pros

• Some roles have high potential for a big positive impact via reducing risks from AI
• Among the best and most robust ways to gain AI-specific career capital
• Highly compensated and prestigious

Cons

• Risk of contributing to or accelerating AI systems that could cause extreme harm
• Financial and social incentives might make it harder to think objectively about risks
• Stress, especially because of a need to carefully and repeatedly assess whether your role is harmful

Recommendation: it's complicated

We think there are people in our audience for whom working in a role at a frontier AI company is their highest-impact option. But some of these roles might also be extremely harmful. This means it's important to be discerning and [...]

Narrated by AI.

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Outline:

(00:42) Pros

(00:56) Cons

(01:14) Recommendation: its complicated

(01:45) Review status

(03:05) Why might it be high impact to work for a frontier AI company?

(03:11) Some roles at these companies might be among the best for reducing risks

(05:28) A frontier AI company could be a huge force for good

(09:23) It could be very good career capital (though there may also be career capital downsides)

(13:48) What's the case against working at a frontier AI company?

(13:54) You might increase the risk of an AI-related catastrophe

(20:13) Does replaceability mean this doesn't matter?

(21:14) There are great alternatives that lack many of the downsides

(22:13) Things to consider for your particular case

(22:48) There are very different kinds of roles

(23:46) Some companies are probably much more responsible than others

(28:40) It matters who you are

(29:46) How can you reduce the downsides of working at a frontier AI company?

(32:05) Where might you work instead?

(34:15) Want one-on-one advice on pursuing this path?

(34:37) Explore jobs

(34:48) Learn more about working at AI companies

(36:33) Learn about other high-impact careers

(36:45) Acknowledgements

The original text contained 10 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
June 20th, 2023

Last updated:
August 8th, 2024

Source:
https://80000hours.org/career-reviews/working-at-an-ai-lab

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.