Hi, I linked to a post I wrote on this topic so you can read it and judge for yourself whether my stance is convincing or not. As for my background in the area - I was previously a neuroscience researcher (in the field of multisensory integration) and currently I am the chair of a community college Math, Science and Engineering department. As such, I read and think broadly about biology (for the courses I teach) and interact with regular people everyday. I am not directly working in fields like AI safety, biological consciousness, nor machine learning, etc. Having said that, I don't think the issue of AI consciousness is likely to be ultimately resolved through some bulletproof philosophical idea or empirical test and that instead it will largely be decided in the court of public opinion. Therefore, I think it is important to get the relevant ideas out into the public sphere and to combat what I see as the overconfidence of those on the biology only consciousness side of the debate.
You are young and the world is changing rapidly. At this point, I would definitely try to stay open minded and also develop broad foundational skills. I think all of the causes you mentioned are going to have many new possibilities that are emerging rather quickly. I don't have any great advice or wisdom on how to best choose a life path and my own certainly has been full of twists and turns that I could not (and did not) predict in advance. The one thing I try to get my own students and kids to do a bit differently and better than I did is to give some thought to finances/income. I pursued research science because that was my interest and I figured that if I performed well in school and later in research, that the rest would just take care of itself. It did not. Ultimately, I found the life of an early stage researcher (as a repeat post-doc) too difficult to sustain with a dependent, growing family - because the income was not near enough to sustain us comfortably. If I had chosen adjacent fields - like applied science/engineering I would have had better income. But at that time, I was purely dedicated to my curiosity and the work and in the long-run, this hampered my long term ability to continue doing this type of work. On the other hand, life can be unpredictable, and learning to be flexible and take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves (rather than only the ones I imagined) has been very beneficial for me.
Hi, I linked to a post I wrote on this topic so you can read it and judge for yourself whether my stance is convincing or not. As for my background in the area - I was previously a neuroscience researcher (in the field of multisensory integration) and currently I am the chair of a community college Math, Science and Engineering department. As such, I read and think broadly about biology (for the courses I teach) and interact with regular people everyday. I am not directly working in fields like AI safety, biological consciousness, nor machine learning, etc. Having said that, I don't think the issue of AI consciousness is likely to be ultimately resolved through some bulletproof philosophical idea or empirical test and that instead it will largely be decided in the court of public opinion. Therefore, I think it is important to get the relevant ideas out into the public sphere and to combat what I see as the overconfidence of those on the biology only consciousness side of the debate.
You are young and the world is changing rapidly. At this point, I would definitely try to stay open minded and also develop broad foundational skills. I think all of the causes you mentioned are going to have many new possibilities that are emerging rather quickly. I don't have any great advice or wisdom on how to best choose a life path and my own certainly has been full of twists and turns that I could not (and did not) predict in advance. The one thing I try to get my own students and kids to do a bit differently and better than I did is to give some thought to finances/income. I pursued research science because that was my interest and I figured that if I performed well in school and later in research, that the rest would just take care of itself. It did not. Ultimately, I found the life of an early stage researcher (as a repeat post-doc) too difficult to sustain with a dependent, growing family - because the income was not near enough to sustain us comfortably. If I had chosen adjacent fields - like applied science/engineering I would have had better income. But at that time, I was purely dedicated to my curiosity and the work and in the long-run, this hampered my long term ability to continue doing this type of work. On the other hand, life can be unpredictable, and learning to be flexible and take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves (rather than only the ones I imagined) has been very beneficial for me.