Chris Olah on working at top AI labs without an undergrad degree

A great example is Scott Young, who decided he was going to get a 4-year education at MIT for just $2000. Normally a 4 year education at MIT would set you back about $300,000 in student loans at a 7% interest rate that even a bankruptcy can’t get rid of. First they educate you, then they garnish your wages for the rest of your life and, god forbid

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how can you take the knowledge work that someone is doing and use AI to help them be dramatically more productive at doing that particular flavor of cognitive work? In our observation with developers, more than anything else, AI helps keep them in flow state longer than they otherwise would. Rather than hitting a blocker when you’re writing a chunk... See more

I think the value of education, obviously, is immensely important. But there are many ways to educate yourself, as you rightly pointed out, and I do think education needs a fundamental reform in order to keep up with where the world's going, both the wealth of knowledge that's now available online and the ability for us to realize that as individua... See more