Talk to people at happy hours

All too often we (at least myself) deliberate over which high-hanging fruit to pluck, when there’s low-hanging fruit right in front of us. Talking with more people at happy hours is a low-hanging fruit. [1] If you’re newer to AI safety and are invited to a happy hour, you should talk with more people outside your social circle at happy hours. Much of the most recent strategic thinking in this space isn’t written down, and if it is, it’s in private Slack channels. Events are where the private Slack channels turn semipublic. You’re able to tap into insights that are otherwise expensive to get outside (email fancy person, hope they read your message) or from your unknown unknowns (you’ve already grokked the takes of people in your milieu). You can laser in on relevant information when conversing to a greater degree than skimming through someone’s writing. Consider each individual’s mind to correspond to a library of experiences. Skimming their LessWrong is like browsing some of the shelves. [2] Talking face-to-face is like chatting with the librarian that knows the catalogue and can recommend you to resources (although in many cases they don’t need to, because they can summarize the exact content). If you’re in SF/Berkeley, it’s likely that you’ve become desensitized to the fortune you have to be there. It might be motivating to reflect on what you would do earlier on in your AI safety journey if you had the chance to attend these events. When you strip away the familiarity we…