# Career, Physics and Goals (was: Artificial General Intelligence Speculations)

**URL:** <https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/career-physics-and-goals-was-artificial-general-intelligence-speculations/473>\
**Category:** Unbounded\
**Created:** [January 5, 2022, 7:33am UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/career-physics-and-goals-was-artificial-general-intelligence-speculations/473 "2022-01-05T07:33:01Z")\
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**Author:** ![lmf](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/user_avatar/discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/lmf/32/1302_2.png) [@lmf](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/lmf)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2022, 11:41pm UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/career-physics-and-goals-was-artificial-general-intelligence-speculations/473/18 "2022-01-08T23:41:22Z")

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I originally had really long answers to these questions, but I tried to trim my answers to their fundamentals.

> [@Elliot](#):
>
> Do you have any job goals? Like professor or working in industry (I don’t know how many physicists get hired for what in what industries)?

I originally planned to be a professor, which is the only profession that can use string theory. More recently I’ve decided that I almost certainly don’t want to do this, because I don’t think I could be a professor and also keep my integrity: Professor salaries come from student tuition and government grants, both of which are scam-like.

> [@Elliot](#):
>
> What’s wrong with what you’ve been doing […]?

In approximate order of importance

1. I am ambitious and I want to do something groundbreaking, but I no longer think it’s possible to do anything truly important in my field.
2. It’s a lot of work, which conflicts with other interests that I have. Much of it is soul-draining busywork too, and no matter how much work you’re doing, you aren’t doing nearly enough work to get the ~1 desirable tenure-track professorship that opens up in the world every year.
3. The salary (especially for PhD students) is extremely low.

> [@Elliot](#):
>
> […] and what do you think would be better?

If I had a clear answer to that question, I would just do it.

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