added by Juan Orbea · updated 2y ago
Chris Olah on working at top AI labs without an undergrad degree
- Incrementally improving an explanation of a technical idea might take a single author weeks to do, but could go on to save a day for thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of students, if it becomes the best option available.
from Chris Olah on working at top AI labs without an undergrad degree by Robert Wiblin
Juan Orbea added 2y ago
- And much more.
from Chris Olah on working at top AI labs without an undergrad degree by Robert Wiblin
Juan Orbea added 2y ago
- We also cover some of Chris’ personal passions over the years, including his attempts to reduce what he calls ‘research debt’ by starting a new academic journal called Distill, focused just on explaining existing results unusually clearly.
from Chris Olah on working at top AI labs without an undergrad degree by Robert Wiblin
Juan Orbea added 2y ago
- Despite that, academics have little incentive to produce outstanding explanations of complex ideas that can speed up the education of everyone coming up in their field. And some even see the process of deciphering bad explanations as a desirable right of passage all should pass through, just as they did.
from Chris Olah on working at top AI labs without an undergrad degree by Robert Wiblin
Juan Orbea added 2y ago
- In this interview we discuss what, if anything, can be learned from his unusual career path. Should more people pass on university and just throw themselves at solving a problem they care about? Or would it be foolhardy for others to try to copy a unique case like Chris’?
from Chris Olah on working at top AI labs without an undergrad degree by Robert Wiblin
Juan Orbea added 2y ago
- If that were unavoidable it would be one thing, but Chris thinks we’re nowhere near communicating existing knowledge as well as we could.
from Chris Olah on working at top AI labs without an undergrad degree by Robert Wiblin
Juan Orbea added 2y ago
- Most people who want to pursue a research career feel they need a degree to get taken seriously. But Chris not only doesn’t have a PhD, but doesn’t even have an undergraduate degree. After dropping out of university to help defend an acquaintance who was facing bogus criminal charges, Chris started independently working on machine learning research... See more
from Chris Olah on working at top AI labs without an undergrad degree by Robert Wiblin
Juan Orbea added 2y ago
- - Thinking about research as a market.
from Chris Olah on working at top AI labs without an undergrad degree by Robert Wiblin
Juan Orbea added 2y ago
- - Why highly thoughtful cold emails can be surprisingly effective, but average cold emails do little.
from Chris Olah on working at top AI labs without an undergrad degree by Robert Wiblin
Juan Orbea added 2y ago