Hey Felipe, I'm currently doing community building at AI Safety Australia and New Zealand and I'm quite interested in decision theory (currently doing an adversarial collaboration with Abram Demski, a MIRI researcher on evidential decision theory). Would be keen to hear if you end up in Australia.
1
Global Priorities Research at ANU
$0raised of $6000 goal
09/16/2023date created
Project summary
I am a Ph.D. student at MIT, where I currently focus on epistemology, decision theory, and normative ethics (especially as they relate to global priorities research). Given that many of the faculty members at ANU focus on consequentialism and decision theory, I believe that this would be a great space to continue my training in these subfields over next summer (July-August 2024), while creating new connections and hopefully producing new research ideas. Decision theory and consequentialism are key aspects of research into global priorities (https://80000hours.org/career-reviews/global-priorities-researcher/), which is an important and neglected career path.
I hope to spend two months at ANU (likely July and August 2024). The funding for this project would allow me to finance my flights and accommodations.
What are this project's goals and how will you achieve them?
I've already reached out to faculty members at ANU who I'd be interested in working with, and they have agreed to work with me over the two months that I'll be there. Given that it will be winter in Australia, this will be a great time to visit, as most students will be in the area.
How will this funding be used?
Roundtrip flight from Boston to Canberra: $2000
Accommodations, food, misc. expenses: $3000-$4000
Who is on your team and what's your track record on similar projects?
I believe that I have the potential to produce quality research in this field.
I graduated summa cum laude with an A.B. in Philosophy from Princeton University in 2021. At Princeton, I received a 96/100 (“high A”) on my senior thesis and was awarded the Class of 1869 Prize for writing the best thesis in moral or social philosophy in the Class of 2021. (Such grades are rare: they “go to work comparable to that of good advanced graduate students, work of a kind more common in doctoral dissertations than undergraduate papers of any kind.”) In 2023, I received competing graduate school offers from NYU, Princeton University, Rutgers University (including the Presidential Fellowship), the University of Oxford, UC Berkeley (including the Chancellor’s Fellowship), and Yale University, but decided to go to MIT on a Presidential Fellowship.
What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails? (premortem)
I believe that this project is extremely unlikely to fail completely: at worst, I'll have only created new connections that will greatly increase my likelihood of succeeding in academia. However, ideally I will also generate new publishable research ideas through my work with faculty members at ANU. Research is hard, and producing truly novel and impactful ideas is rare, so the possibility that I'll fail on this front is non-negligible.
What other funding are you or your project getting?
N/A
David Thorstad
2 months ago
Just a relevant piece of information: the ANU summer visitors season is one of the biggest and most impactful summer events in philosophy and tends to have a big impact on the careers and research trajectory of people who do it. It's something of a "who's who, and who would like to do cool things during their summer" of philosophy. They're also very strong in the relevant fields. I did the ANU visitors season largely because I'd learn more decision theory there than at Harvard.
Joel Becker
2 months ago
Why should I think your research is impactful in expectation? I couldn't find any information on your previous research on this proposal nor on your website.
If your ask is implicitly "I am seeking broad research training, not support on a particular research project" then I'd instead want you to expand on why this is likely to be helpful. (Are there experts in your preferred sub-fields at MIT? If there are not, should that make me concerned about you staying at MIT? What do you expect will be the short-term outcomes of a trip like this? Etc.)
Felipe Doria
2 months ago
Hi, Joel--thank you for engaging with my post! These are all great questions.
I only started my Ph.D. program about two weeks ago, so I sadly don't yet have any published research. (I'm hoping experiences like this one will help me change that!)
There are certainly people that are experts in these topics at MIT (e.g., Caspar Hare). However, for any grad program that I could've chosen, there would've been at most a couple of people focusing on these questions. Therefore, the decision to choose MIT was based not only on how many people would be able to help me with my research on this particular topic, but also other considerations that are important for my academic career (e.g., placement record). MIT seemed like the optimal decision. Nonetheless, I am still interested in getting to engage with more experts on these topics--I don't think I'd get very far in academia if I didn't try to collaborate with people outside of my department, regardless of what program I had chosen. Moreover, global priorities research is a broad field, with many interesting questions and perspectives. Working with faculty members at ANU would help me come up with new research ideas while getting new perspectives on topics that I'm already thinking about (for example, the possibility of imprecise credences and its influence on decision-making).
In terms of short-term outcomes for this trip, I think one hugely beneficial outcome would be just making lasting connections outside of my department. Many of my former professors have recommended that I visit other departments for extended periods (e.g., a summer, or a semester) before I go on the job market. If I succeed in the job market, then it'll be more likely that I'll be able to continue focusing on global priorities research. (And, given how neglected this career path is, I expect that this could be beneficial for the world.) More importantly, and as I mentioned above, I also hope to come up with new research ideas during this trip and eventually publish them. In particular, I hope to work with Alan Hájek (he's one of the faculty members I've already reached out to), who has recently published papers like “Degrees of Commensurability and the Repugnant Conclusion" and “Non-Measurability, Imprecise Credences, and Imprecise Chances." These are already topics that I'm working on at MIT (with Caspar Hare and Kevin Dorst), and which have important implications for decision theory and population ethics.
Let me know if that answers your questions--if not, I'm happy to provide any more details that would be helpful!
Joel Becker
2 months ago
Thank you very much for the helpful detail Felipe! I'll have a think about this.
Joel Becker
2 months ago
Had a think and spoke with a philosopher I respect. Right now I think I do not want to fund this project, for the following reasons:
The summer fellowship indeed seems helpful for later academic placements (as you say). I'm less convinced that it will lead to you doing more exciting research, which feels closer to the thing I care about.
I suspect that you might get funding from non-Manifund sources, e.g. your department. (Do ANU expect junior scholars to pay thousands out of Ph.D. stipends without extra support from departments? If yes... wow!)
In part from my own experience being a junior researcher in GPR-land, I start pessimistic about the chances that junior GPR researchers will end up focusing on questions that I think are important (separate from whether or not they will be successful). This makes me relatively more interested in funding people with pre-existing research track records.
Weak view, largely stolen from others, that definitely isn't the pivotal consideration: I am skeptical that research on imprecise credences will be impactful. This is because I expect that the conclusions will make options appear more permissible than previously thought, which makes it less likely to be action-relevant.
I'm sure I've got some facts or interpretations wrong above -- happy to go back and forth!