The candidates should read up on effective altruism before applying to this company.
If you don’t know what that is, then you won’t understand why Anthropic are asking those sort of questions.
Anthropic candidates face blunt money question
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Re: Anthropic candidates face blunt money question
#12"Will you lie to get this job?" Sounds like theyre actively hiring people to train the worst kind of AI
Is it that inconceivable to think that there are people who would be ok with stopping what they're doing when they realize it's harmful?
The question won't distinguish between both types of people, except for the bad liars.
Re: Anthropic candidates face blunt money question
#13The candidates should read up on effective altruism before applying to this company. If you don’t know what that is, then you won’t understand why Anthropic are asking those sort of questions.
This is good advice. And if you don’t want to spend too much time reading about EA, imagine for yourself the inner dialogue of someone struggling with the tension between wanting to get really, really rich at any cost, and also really, really wanting other people to cherish them as a heroic-level Good Person, and also (this part is crucial) not have to sully their hands doing any actual hands-on good directly.
The ideal runs close to the output of Bill Gates’ PR machine.
Re: Anthropic candidates face blunt money question
#14> One applicant — who spoke to Axios on the condition of anonymity for fear of hurting future job opportunities — recalled being asked how they would feel if the company someday abandoned its AI ambitions for safety reasons, and that decision sent the stock to zero. Is that a scoop? I thought that was a well known thing with Anthropic interview process. They were very transparent about it beforehand from what I remem…
I wasn't aware this was known information, but had I not, I would have assumed this was some 4D PR manoeuvre.
It’s becoming trendy to hate on Anthropic these days but their AI security record speaks for itself for years. Every AI safety benchmark/paper I’ve seen since sonnet became viable placed them far ahead of all other providers - marketing ploy or not (ala Apple “privacy” focus) the company has always had as part of their DNA thus far.
Re: Anthropic candidates face blunt money question
#15The candidates should read up on effective altruism before applying to this company. If you don’t know what that is, then you won’t understand why Anthropic are asking those sort of questions.
This is good advice. And if you don’t want to spend too much time reading about EA, imagine for yourself the inner dialogue of someone struggling with the tension between wanting to get really, really rich at any cost, and also really, really wanting other people to cherish them as a heroic-level Good Person, and also (this part is crucial) not have to sully their hands doing any actual hands-on good directly. The id…
Shame that machine didn't manage to erase Epstein's emails.
Re: Anthropic candidates face blunt money question
#16Admit it HN, you have sour grapes for not having a job at Anthropic/OpenAI.
I have no clue how to get my resume past their Claude ATS so it's kind of moot.
Re: Anthropic candidates face blunt money question
#17"Will you lie to get this job?" Sounds like theyre actively hiring people to train the worst kind of AI
Is it that inconceivable to think that there are people who would be ok with stopping what they're doing when they realize it's harmful?
I think what's inconceivable is that anyone thinks that these kinds of questions really work. The intersection of high-skilled people that can work there with low-awareness people that can't navigate these questions in a "politically correct" (for lack of a better term) way must be near 0.
"Oh, of course I wouldn't mind stopping if we decide that something is too dangerous to pursue. I think the mere fact that we'd get close to knowing how to do it would satisfy my curiosity. Plus, if we'd be close to it, I'd probably take some time to spend with my loved ones, as the competition would likely be close as well."
It's not hard to see these kinds of questions as more than kabuki theatre. I'd put them in the same vein as those "do you intend to perform any terrorists acts while in our country" questions you get while travelling.
Re: Anthropic candidates face blunt money question
#18The candidates should read up on effective altruism before applying to this company. If you don’t know what that is, then you won’t understand why Anthropic are asking those sort of questions.
Why are you so anti-anthropic? Hundreds of posts on hacker news decrying anthropic.
Re: Anthropic candidates face blunt money question
#19This is such a good example of a straight forward question that achieves the exact opposite of its purpose. What do we want? Highly ethical people that are mission focused and willing to give up on economic upside for the mission. What are we going to get? Sociopaths who are perfectly happy lying to your face about their intentions, or sycophants who are going to tell you what you want to hear.
Do you know who has the best answer to a moral quandry they've had to navigate during their career? Liars! That's a really difficult question to answer if you're honest, it's a really easy question to answer if you're dishonest.
If you really want to pursue this strategy rather than setting up bullshit interview questions you could do something much more straight forward. Agree some standard of living that's acceptable for your employees - let's say 250k in the bay area. Give them that as cash comp, and everything else goes into a "fund" which gets paid out when specific milestones are achieved, as judged by some panel. Cure cancer? You all get 10% of your deferred comp.
If you want your employees to be prioritizing things other than stock price you can literally just encode that into your compensation strategy if you like!
Obviously no one would do that, because they don't actually want to give up the comp.
Re: Anthropic candidates face blunt money question
#20Admit it HN, you have sour grapes for not having a job at Anthropic/OpenAI.
I was curious until I knew someone who worked for them. I can tell you that you couldn’t pay me enough now.