Benjamin Todd

But when you're more calibrated, it often is good advice.

Suppose you're comparing two options, earning to give as a software engineer or research in AI safety.

Imagine you think your chances of success in research aren't very high, so most likely you have more impact earning to give.

But if you do succeed in research, it would be much higher impact.

If you only get one shot to choose, you should earn to give.

But the real world isn't normally like that.

If you try the research path and it doesn't work out, you can most likely go back to earning to give.

But if it does work out, then you'll be in a much higher impact path for the rest of your career.

In other words, there's an asymmetry.

It means that if you can tolerate the risk, it's better to try research first.

More generally, you stand to learn the most from trying paths that might be really, really good, but that you're very uncertain about.

In other words, long shots.

In this sense, the advice to shoot for the stars makes sense, especially for young people.

An aggressive version of this strategy is to rank your options in terms of upside.

That is, how good they would be if they go unusually well, say in the top 10% of scenarios.

Then start with the top-ranked one.

If you find you're not on track to hit the upside scenario within a given time frame, try the next one, and so on.

This is usually only suitable if you have good backup options, and the fortunate position of being able to try lots of things.

A more moderate version of this strategy is to use it as a tiebreaker.

When uncertain between two options, pick the one with the bigger potential upside.