I have spent around 100–200 hours listening to AI safety audiobooks, AI Safety Fundamentals course, Rob Miles YouTube, The Sequences, various bits and pieces of a bunch of YouTube AI channels and podcasts, as well as some time thinking through the basic case for X-risk.

When I look at certain heavy academic stuff or try to consume more technical content I sometimes get pretty lost. I am wondering how I can best build up my understanding of the basic technical details and terminology of AI and a broad overview of AI safety, such that I don’t get lost and it isn’t too grueling or over my head.

For context, fun doesn’t necessarily have to mean entertaining, I would find it fun to read a textbook that I can understand and that gradually builds my knowledge;

And easy doesn’t have to mean super basic, it probably needs to start with basics (I know up to pre-calculus but am unusually good at learning new math, I know relatively little about computer science) but then I would like to gradually build up to have a relatively deep understanding of whatever mathematics and technical details I need to really understand the problems at hand.

But easy and fun could also mean really informative podcasts or fiction that actually provides really useful insights, or a YouTube channel that explains the basics really effectively.

I guess the basic idea is I want to focus hard-core on AI, but I don’t want to burn out and want to ease into it in a way that makes me excited about it and enjoy it as much as possible, and I am wondering if anyone has experienced such content themselves, if so I would love to hear about it!

Thanks in advance!