Building aptitudes & kicking ass | Holden Karnofsky (2021)

Holden Karnofsky, the driving force behind GiveWell and Open Philanthropy, discusses the importance of building aptitudes early in one’s career to have a lasting impact. He emphasizes the need for early-career individuals to focus on developing skills that are transferable across various fields and causes, rather than solely pursuing specific jobs or career paths. Karnofsky argues that individuals should aim to excel in areas where they can demonstrate exceptional ability, as this can lead to unexpected opportunities and influence.

Aptitude-First Framework

• 00:03:01 Karnofsky proposes an aptitude-first framework for career choice, emphasizing the development of transferable skills rather than pursuing specific jobs or causes early in one's career. He suggests that aptitudes such as organization running, building, and boosting, research, communications, software engineering, information security, and academia offer a more reliable path to long-term impact than focusing on specific causes or roles. He argues that these aptitudes are less dependent on specific industries or organizations and can be readily applied to various fields.

Aptitude vs. Career Path

• 00:08:47 Karnofsky distinguishes between an aptitude-first approach and a career path-first approach, arguing that the former focuses on building a specific skillset that can be applied to different areas, while the latter emphasizes a specific endpoint or role within a particular industry or cause. He believes that career path-first approaches are often too specific and susceptible to unforeseen changes in the job market, while aptitude-first approaches offer greater flexibility and adaptability.

Importance of Flourishing

• 00:12:02 Karnofsky emphasizes the importance of flourishing and excelling in one’s chosen field, arguing that it leads to greater opportunities, connections, and influence. He believes that individuals who are exceptional in their respective domains are more likely to attract opportunities to have a larger impact, even if those opportunities lie outside their initial areas of expertise.

Importance of Longtermism

• 00:21:07 Karnofsky discusses the importance of longtermism, highlighting the need to focus on issues that have the potential to significantly impact the future trajectory of humanity. He recognizes that not every career path will directly align with one’s long-term goals, but emphasizes that developing strong aptitudes can still contribute to positive change, even if it does not lead to a direct role in longtermism.

State of Longtermism

• 00:51:50 Karnofsky reflects on the state of longtermism as a community and intellectual movement, acknowledging its growing community and the emergence of new ideas but highlighting a challenge in identifying concrete projects with high impact and the ability to absorb large amounts of funding. He draws an analogy to a company in its early stages, where the mission and direction are not yet fully defined, making it difficult to scale up operations and effectively allocate resources.

Finding Money Pits

• 01:02:14 Karnofsky explores the possibility of identifying ‘money pits’ – projects that offer high potential for absorbing large amounts of funding, even if they may not be the most effective in terms of overall impact. He suggests that areas like climate change, biosecurity, and AI research could potentially serve as money pits. He acknowledges that while finding these money pits is a valid approach, he believes that focusing on answering fundamental questions and gaining a better understanding of long-term goals is crucial for identifying the most impactful projects and allocating resources effectively.

Importance of Global Health & Wellbeing

• 01:09:02 Karnofsky discusses the importance of global health and wellbeing initiatives, acknowledging their significant impact on the lives of many people. He argues that these initiatives offer a more tangible and measurable approach to improving the world than focusing on broader, less well-defined long-term goals, which can be more difficult to measure and evaluate.

AI Deployment Problem

• 01:38:13 Karnofsky identifies the ‘AI deployment problem’ as a significant challenge that requires further attention and research. He argues that this problem goes beyond the technical aspects of AI alignment and focuses on the sociopolitical challenges of deploying powerful AI systems in a responsible and safe manner. He suggests that addressing this problem requires a thorough analysis of various scenarios and a clear understanding of how AI development and deployment should be managed to ensure positive outcomes.

Lessons from COVID

• 02:20:01 Karnofsky reflects on lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, emphasizing the importance of action over foresight. He acknowledges that while some individuals were able to anticipate the pandemic early on, their ability to effectively translate their foresight into positive action was limited. He highlights the importance of effort and dedication, emphasizing that individuals who actively engaged with the pandemic and dedicated significant time and energy to addressing it had a greater impact than those who simply predicted its arrival.