Comment by dearken on Alignment Newsletter One Year Retrospective · 2019-04-18T22:13:58.639Z · LW · GW

I'm a second-year college student. I hope to pursue a career in computing ethics, but I'm not sure I'll end up specifically in AI safety. I've attended some AI safety research meetings at my school, but I don't expect to actually begin doing my own research until next year.

I laughed at your idea that some people subscribe to the newsletter to feel like part of an elite group... yeah, that might be me at this point! However, I think it will be very useful for me when I have more time this summer to spend on deciphering the content. If I don't understand something in your summary, I look it up, so I've already begun to organically build a useful knowledge base.

Also, the newsletter provides me with a regular dose of reassurance and inspiration. Even when I don't have time to thoroughly read the summaries, skimming them reminds me how interesting this field is.

Thanks for your work, and I enjoyed reading the retrospective!