College life with short AGI timelines

When I started my freshman year, my median estimate for AGI was 20 years. In my senior year it was down to 3 years (although it's gone back up to 5 years since then). My expectations of the future made my college experience somewhat unusual and I will share some reflections as someone who recently graduated.

I came into college wanting to minimize existential risks, from the simple fact that AGI is likely to happen this century and biological weapons and nuclear war could cause catastrophes even if AGI doesn’t happen.

The calm before the storm

College is usually a time when people mature, take steps towards finding their place in the world, and start their 40-year careers. For my friends, it is a time when they are faced with the creation of superintelligence and the potential loss of everything they care about.

There is a banality many of us have felt where you spend one hour building skills to eventually help prevent AGI from destroying humanity, and the next hour you’re doing homework for a useless class you’re forced to take for your degree. One conversation is about whether you should carry around iodine in case tensions spiral [...]

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Outline:

(00:42) The calm before the storm

(01:55) Course triage

(03:22) Picking a major

(04:08) Dropping out

(05:13) Like-minded peers

(06:18) Tips for current college students

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First published:
November 28th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QJQuhB5Do82gmXpHF/college-life-with-short-agi-timelines

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.