Running away (Life Update)

Things are going insanely well, except for one small issue

When I was in high school, I came up with a foolproof plan in case I ever wanted to kill myself.

If I became extremely depressed — my career failed spectacularly, or all my friends disowned me, or I got addicted to opiates — I would get up, pack my backpack, and walk off into the woods, never to be seen again. I would escape all the foils of modern industrialized life, and become an enlightened wise old man of the forest.

I may end up using this plan sooner than I expected. Not because I’m depressed, but because it’s the only story that I am capable of living in a compelling way right now.

But first, some context:

Over the course of the summer, I (with the help of some friends) managed to get an internship at OpenAI. We showed enough promise that the company extended full-time offers to all of us, with a negotiable start date any time between now and July.

It’s probably impossible to overstate how big a deal this was to us. In my social circles, OpenAI engenders similar emotions to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory. A fantastical, mysterious place that produces seemingly magical things. Except instead of making children’s treats, it’s making something that will likely save (or destroy) the world.

For a long time, working at a big AI lab had been a career end-goal for me. I think that AI will be hugely transformative, and inside of a lab seems to be one of the highest-leverage places to be in the coming years. I’d been planning on grinding the last two years of college to try and get a seat on this rocket, and here it was, right in front of me, several years ahead of schedule.

The other option would be continuing my education at MIT. I could decline the offer, spurning the promise of hundreds of thousands of dollars, infinite career capitol, and a a front row view of AGI.

I probably would have chosen the latter — I’m too contrarian to take the choice that pays more, and I honestly think I’d grow more at MIT than OpenAI. With a newfound confidence that career capitol wasn’t an issue, I could focus on exclusively doing the things I wanted to do. I could build a motorcycle. I could program quantum computers. I could get into biohacking. All of this while surrounded by the coolest people in the country.

The other reason I would go back is because if I’m at MIT, I get to be a part of East Campus. Specifically, a hall within East Campus called Putz. I value this a lot. For one, it’s a super super cool place. We build a rollercoaster every year (from scratch), do insane hacks, and throw crazy parties.

But the main reason I want to be a part of EC is because I want to throw a revolution. For the last couple of decades, the administration has been cracking down on student life. They’ve banned traditions, changed rules to give halls less autonomy in selecting members, and literally destroyed dorms that didn’t comply. This represents a pattern I hate — a softening of cultures due to faceless bureaucracies and cowardly liability concerns, a rejection of uniqueness and excellence in exchange for safety and conformity. If we can win this fight, in this one place, at this one time, maybe there’s hope for the world.

So I can either save the world from AGI, or take part in a revolution. Both good options.

Except now, I’m not going to do either. Because I’m not able to.

This is because for the past 5 months I’ve been afflicted by a strange medical condition. For reasons still unknown, every cognitive task — programming, writing, even conversations with friends — has been accompanied by an intense brain fog. It’s the mental equivalent of swimming through molasses — a similar sensation to getting way too high, or having just woken up, except it’s constant. I’ll start a sentence, and over the course of it, forget why I’m saying it, where it started, why I’m here, and the next word I wanted to say. Then, there’s the disassociation — my emotions are muted, I don’t care very much about anything. As someone who’s usually fairly emotional, this is hard, and makes me a worse person.

I’m still pretty functional. I did the whole internship feeling like this, after all. But I’m a shell of my normal self. So rather than choose to do either of these options mediocrely, sealing my fate as a side character in someone else’s story, I’m going to reuse the plan I came up with back in high school. Because I know I can do it well. And I think it’s the choice most likely to lead to a life that I’m proud of.

That’s about all the explanation I can give. Until I feel better, I’ll be on an adventure. My next stop (after I rescue my car from a San Francisco mechanic) is Olympic National Park, which I’m going to disappear into until I can get my motorcycle license. With that, I’m going to ride across a country — currently considering Vietnam and Tajikistan. I’ll try really hard to keep in touch with my school friends — I’m planning on making it back into Boston for a few highlights/long weekends, and will contribute what I can to The Culture.

I’ll stop this at some point — probably when I feel normal again. Given how things are trending (I’ve been away from work for about a week), I don’t think this will take more than a month. When this happens I’m planning to take the job at OpenAI, and work there for at least the rest of the school year. I’ll work my ass off, and try to move the needle on some important safety stuff.

I’m still not sure what comes after this. I still really want to come back to MIT to be there for EC’s reopening. But maybe I’ll decide that the work I’m doing at OpenAI is too important to neglect, and stay there for the long haul. Or maybe some third option that I can’t even imagine right now — if there’s anything the last couple months have taught me, it’s that it’s impossible predict where I’m going to be more than a few weeks ahead of time.