80,000 Hours Podcast

Rob Wiblin on how he ended up the way he is

03 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This is a crosspost of an episode of the Eureka Podcast. The interviewer is Misha Saul, a childhood friend of Rob's, who he has known for over 20 ye...

#90 – Ajeya Cotra on worldview diversification and how big the future could be

21 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

You wake up in a mysterious box, and hear the booming voice of God: “I just flipped a coin. If it came up heads, I made ten boxes, labeled 1 thro...

Rob Wiblin on self-improvement and research ethics

13 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This is a crosspost of an episode of the Clearer Thinking Podcast: 022: Self-Improvement and Research Ethics with Rob Wiblin. Rob chats with Spence...

#73 - Phil Trammell on patient philanthropy and waiting to do good [re-release]

07 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Rebroadcast: this episode was originally released in March 2020. To do good, most of us look to use our time and money to affect the world around us...

#75 – Michelle Hutchinson on what people most often ask 80,000 Hours [re-release]

30 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Rebroadcast: this episode was originally released in April 2020. Since it was founded, 80,000 Hours has done one-on-one calls to supplement our onli...

#89 – Owen Cotton-Barratt on epistemic systems and layers of defense against potential global catastrophes

17 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

From one point of view academia forms one big 'epistemic' system — a process which directs attention, generates ideas, and judges which are good. Tr...

#88 – Tristan Harris on the need to change the incentives of social media companies

03 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In its first 28 days on Netflix, the documentary The Social Dilemma — about the possible harms being caused by social media and other technology pro...

Benjamin Todd on what the effective altruism community most needs (80k team chat #4)

12 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the last '80k team chat' with Ben Todd and Arden Koehler, we discussed what effective altruism is and isn't, and how to argue for it. In this episo...

#87 – Russ Roberts on whether it's more effective to help strangers, or people you know

03 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

If you want to make the world a better place, would it be better to help your niece with her SATs, or try to join the State Department to lower the ri...

How much does a vote matter? (Article)

29 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s release is the latest in our series of audio versions of our articles.In this one — How much does a vote matter? — I investigate the two...

#86 – Hilary Greaves on Pascal's mugging, strong longtermism, and whether existing can be good for us

21 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Had World War 1 never happened, you might never have existed. It’s very unlikely that the exact chain of events that led to your conception would h...

Benjamin Todd on the core of effective altruism and how to argue for it (80k team chat #3)

22 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s episode is the latest conversation between Arden Koehler, and our CEO, Ben Todd. Ben’s been thinking a lot about effective altruism rece...

Ideas for high impact careers beyond our priority paths (Article)

07 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s release is the latest in our series of audio versions of our articles. In this one, we go through some more career options beyond our prio...

Benjamin Todd on varieties of longtermism and things 80,000 Hours might be getting wrong (80k team chat #2)

01 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s bonus episode is a conversation between Arden Koehler, and our CEO, Ben Todd. Ben’s been doing a bunch of research recently, and we thou...

Global issues beyond 80,000 Hours’ current priorities (Article)

28 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s release is the latest in our series of audio versions of our articles. In this one, we go through 30 global issues beyond the ones we usua...

#85 - Mark Lynas on climate change, societal collapse & nuclear energy

20 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

A golf-ball sized lump of uranium can deliver more than enough power to cover all of your lifetime energy use. To get the same energy from coal, you’...

#84 – Shruti Rajagopalan on what India did to stop COVID-19 and how well it worked

13 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

When COVID-19 struck the US, everyone was told that hand sanitizer needed to be saved for healthcare professionals, so they should just wash their han...

#83 - Jennifer Doleac on preventing crime without police and prisons

31 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The killing of George Floyd has prompted a great deal of debate over whether the US should reduce the size of its police departments. The research lit...

#82 – James Forman Jr on reducing the cruelty of the US criminal legal system

27 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

No democracy has ever incarcerated as many people as the United States. To get its incarceration rate down to the global average, the US would have to...

#81 - Ben Garfinkel on scrutinising classic AI risk arguments

09 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

80,000 Hours, along with many other members of the effective altruism movement, has argued that helping to positively shape the development of artific...

Advice on how to read our advice (Article)

29 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This is the fourth release in our new series of audio articles. If you want to read the original article or check out the links within it, you can fi...

#80 – Stuart Russell on why our approach to AI is broken and how to fix it

22 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Stuart Russell, Professor at UC Berkeley and co-author of the most popular AI textbook, thinks the way we approach machine learning today is fundament...

What anonymous contributors think about important life and career questions (Article)

05 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Today we’re launching the final entry of our ‘anonymous answers' series on the website. It features answers to 23 different questions including ...

#79 – A.J. Jacobs on radical honesty, following the whole Bible, and reframing global problems as puzzles

01 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s guest, New York Times bestselling author A.J. Jacobs, always hated Judge Judy. But after he found out that she was his seventh cousin, he th...

#78 – Danny Hernandez on forecasting and the drivers of AI progress

22 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Companies use about 300,000 times more computation training the best AI systems today than they did in 2012 and algorithmic innovations have also made...

#77 – Marc Lipsitch on whether we're winning or losing against COVID-19

18 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In March Professor Marc Lipsitch — Director of Harvard's Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics — abruptly found himself a global celebrity, his...

Article: Ways people trying to do good accidentally make things worse, and how to avoid them

12 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s release is the second experiment in making audio versions of our articles. The first was a narration of Greg Lewis’ terrific problem pro...

#76 – Tara Kirk Sell on misinformation, who's done well and badly, & what to reopen first

08 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Amid a rising COVID-19 death toll, and looming economic disaster, we’ve been looking for good news — and one thing we're especially thankful for i...

#75 – Michelle Hutchinson on what people most often ask 80,000 Hours

28 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Since it was founded, 80,000 Hours has done one-on-one calls to supplement our online content and offer more personalised advice. We try to help peopl...

#74 – Dr Greg Lewis on COVID-19 & catastrophic biological risks

17 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Our lives currently revolve around the global emergency of COVID-19; you’re probably reading this while confined to your house, as the death toll fr...

Article: Reducing global catastrophic biological risks

15 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In a few days we'll be putting out a conversation with Dr Greg Lewis, who studies how to prevent global catastrophic biological risks at Oxford's Futu...

Emergency episode: Rob & Howie on the menace of COVID-19, and what both governments & individuals might do to help

19 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

From home isolation Rob and Howie just recorded an episode on: 1. How many could die in the crisis, and the risk to your health personally. 2. What in...

#73 – Phil Trammell on patient philanthropy and waiting to do good

17 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

To do good, most of us look to use our time and money to affect the world around us today. But perhaps that's all wrong. If you took $1,000 you were g...

#72 - Toby Ord on the precipice and humanity's potential futures

07 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This week Oxford academic and 80,000 Hours trustee Dr Toby Ord released his new book The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity. It's ...

#71 - Benjamin Todd on the key ideas of 80,000 Hours

02 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The 80,000 Hours Podcast is about “the world’s most pressing problems and how you can use your career to solve them”, and in this episode we tac...

Arden & Rob on demandingness, work-life balance & injustice (80k team chat #1)

25 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Today's bonus episode of the podcast is a quick conversation between me and my fellow 80,000 Hours researcher Arden Koehler about a few topics, includ...

#70 - Dr Cassidy Nelson on the 12 best ways to stop the next pandemic (and limit nCoV)

13 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

nCoV is alarming governments and citizens around the world. It has killed more than 1,000 people, brought the Chinese economy to a standstill, and con...

#69 – Jeffrey Ding on China, its AI dream, and what we get wrong about both

06 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The State Council of China's 2017 AI plan was the starting point of China’s AI planning; China’s approach to AI is defined by its top-down and mon...

Rob & Howie on what we do and don't know about 2019-nCoV

03 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Two 80,000 Hours researchers, Robert Wiblin and Howie Lempel, record an experimental bonus episode about the new 2019-nCoV virus.See this list of reso...

#68 - Will MacAskill on the paralysis argument, whether we're at the hinge of history, & his new priorities

24 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

You’re given a box with a set of dice in it. If you roll an even number, a person's life is saved. If you roll an odd number, someone else will die....

#44 Classic episode - Paul Christiano on finding real solutions to the AI alignment problem

15 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Rebroadcast: this episode was originally released in October 2018. Paul Christiano is one of the smartest people I know. After our first session pro...

#33 Classic episode - Anders Sandberg on cryonics, solar flares, and the annual odds of nuclear war

08 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Rebroadcast: this episode was originally released in May 2018. Joseph Stalin had a life-extension program dedicated to making himself immortal. What...

#17 Classic episode - Will MacAskill on moral uncertainty, utilitarianism & how to avoid being a moral monster

31 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Rebroadcast: this episode was originally released in January 2018. Immanuel Kant is a profoundly influential figure in modern philosophy, and was one ...

#67 – David Chalmers on the nature and ethics of consciousness

16 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What is it like to be you right now? You're seeing this text on the screen, smelling the coffee next to you, and feeling the warmth of the cup. There’...

#66 – Peter Singer on being provocative, effective altruism, & how his moral views have changed

05 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 1989, the professor of moral philosophy Peter Singer was all over the news for his inflammatory opinions about abortion. But the controversy stemme...

#65 – Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins on 8 years pursuing WMD arms control, & diversity in diplomacy

19 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

"…it started when the Soviet Union fell apart and there was a real desire to ensure security of nuclear materials and pathogens, and that scientists...

#64 – Bruce Schneier on how insecure electronic voting could break the United States — and surveillance without tyranny

25 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

November 3 2020, 10:32PM: CNN, NBC, and FOX report that Donald Trump has narrowly won Florida, and with it, re-election.  November 3 2020, 11:46PM: ...

Rob Wiblin on plastic straws, nicotine, doping, & whether changing the long-term is really possible

25 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Today's episode is a compilation of interviews I recently recorded for two other shows, Love Your Work and The Neoliberal Podcast.  If you've listen...

Have we helped you have a bigger social impact? Our annual survey, plus other ways we can help you.

16 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

1. Fill out our annual impact survey here. 2. Find a great vacancy on our job board. 3. Learn about our key ideas, and get links to our top articl...

#63 – Vitalik Buterin on better ways to fund public goods, blockchain's failures, & effective giving

03 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Historically, progress in the field of cryptography has had major consequences. It has changed the course of major wars, made it possible to do busine...

#62 – Paul Christiano on messaging the future, increasing compute, & how CO2 impacts your brain

05 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Imagine that – one day – humanity dies out. At some point, many millions of years later, intelligent life might well evolve again. Is there any me...

#61 - Helen Toner on emerging technology, national security, and China

17 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

From 1870 to 1950, the introduction of electricity transformed life in the US and UK, as people gained access to lighting, radio and a wide range of h...

#60 - Phil Tetlock on why accurate forecasting matters for everything, and how you can do it better

28 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever been infuriated by a doctor's unwillingness to give you an honest, probabilistic estimate about what to expect? Or a lawyer who won't te...

#59 – Cass Sunstein on how change happens, and why it's so often abrupt & unpredictable

17 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It can often feel hopeless to be an activist seeking social change on an obscure issue where most people seem opposed or at best indifferent to you. B...

#58 – Pushmeet Kohli of DeepMind on designing robust & reliable AI systems and how to succeed in AI

03 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

When you're building a bridge, responsibility for making sure it won't fall over isn't handed over to a few 'bridge not falling down engineers'. Makin...

Rob Wiblin on human nature, new technology, and living a happy, healthy & ethical life

13 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This is a cross-post of some interviews Rob did recently on two other podcasts — Mission Daily (from 2m) and The Good Life (from 1h13m). Some of ...

#57 – Tom Kalil on how to do the most good in government

23 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

You’re 29 years old, and you’ve just been given a job in the White House. How do you quickly figure out how the US Executive Branch behemoth actua...

#56 - Persis Eskander on wild animal welfare and what, if anything, to do about it

15 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Elephants in chains at travelling circuses; pregnant pigs trapped in coffin sized crates at factory farms; deers living in the wild. We should welcome...

#55 – Lutter & Winter on founding charter cities with outstanding governance to end poverty

31 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Governance matters. Policy change quickly took China from famine to fortune; Singapore from swamps to skyscrapers; and Hong Kong from fishing village ...

#54 – OpenAI on publication norms, malicious uses of AI, and general-purpose learning algorithms

19 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

OpenAI’s Dactyl is an AI system that can manipulate objects with a human-like robot hand. OpenAI Five is an AI system that can defeat humans at the ...

#53 - Kelsey Piper on the room for important advocacy within journalism

27 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

“Politics. Business. Opinion. Science. Sports. Animal welfare. Existential risk.” Is this a plausible future lineup for major news outlets? Funde...

Julia Galef and Rob Wiblin on an updated view of the best ways to help humanity

17 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This is a cross-post of an interview Rob did with Julia Galef on her podcast Rationally Speaking. Rob and Julia discuss how the career advice 80,000 H...

#52 - Glen Weyl on uprooting capitalism and democracy for a just society

08 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Pro-market economists love to wax rhapsodic about the capacity of markets to pull together the valuable local information spread across all of society...

#51 - Martin Gurri on the revolt of the public & crisis of authority in the information age

29 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Politics in rich countries seems to be going nuts. What's the explanation? Rising inequality? The decline of manufacturing jobs? Excessive immigration...

#50 - David Denkenberger on how to feed all 8b people through an asteroid/nuclear winter

27 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

If an asteroid impact or nuclear winter blocked the sun for years, our inability to grow food would result in billions dying of starvation, right? Acc...

#49 - Rachel Glennerster on a year's worth of education for 30c & other development 'best buys'

20 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

If I told you it's possible to deliver an extra year of ideal primary-level education for under $1, would you believe me? Hopefully not - the claim is...

#48 - Brian Christian on better living through the wisdom of computer science

22 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Please let us know if we've helped you: Fill out our annual impact survey Ever felt that you were so busy you spent all your time paralysed trying to...

#47 - Catherine Olsson & Daniel Ziegler on the fast path into high-impact ML engineering roles

02 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

After dropping out of a machine learning PhD at Stanford, Daniel Ziegler needed to decide what to do next. He’d always enjoyed building stuff and wa...

#46 - Hilary Greaves on moral cluelessness & tackling crucial questions in academia

23 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The barista gives you your coffee and change, and you walk away from the busy line. But you suddenly realise she gave you $1 less than she should have...

#45 - Tyler Cowen's case for maximising econ growth, stabilising civilization & thinking long-term

17 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

I've probably spent more time reading Tyler Cowen - Professor of Economics at George Mason University - than any other author. Indeed it's his incredi...

#44 - Paul Christiano on how we'll hand the future off to AI, & solving the alignment problem

02 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Paul Christiano is one of the smartest people I know. After our first session produced such great material, we decided to do a second recording, resul...

#43 - Daniel Ellsberg on the institutional insanity that maintains nuclear doomsday machines

25 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In Stanley Kubrick’s iconic film Dr. Strangelove, the American president is informed that the Soviet Union has created a secret deterrence system wh...

#42 - Amanda Askell on moral empathy, the value of information & the ethics of infinity

11 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Consider two familiar moments at a family reunion. Our host, Uncle Bill, takes pride in his barbecuing skills. But his niece Becky says that she now ...

#41 - David Roodman on incarceration, geomagnetic storms, & becoming a world-class researcher

28 Aug 2018

Contributed by Lukas

With 698 inmates per 100,000 citizens, the U.S. is by far the leader among large wealthy nations in incarceration. But what effect does imprisonment a...

#40 - Katja Grace on forecasting future technology & how much we should trust expert predictions

21 Aug 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Experts believe that artificial intelligence will be better than humans at driving trucks by 2027, working in retail by 2031, writing bestselling book...

#39 - Spencer Greenberg on the scientific approach to solving difficult everyday questions

07 Aug 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Will Trump be re-elected? Will North Korea give up their nuclear weapons? Will your friend turn up to dinner? Spencer Greenberg, founder of ClearerTh...

#38 - Yew-Kwang Ng on anticipating effective altruism decades ago & how to make a much happier world

26 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Will people who think carefully about how to maximize welfare eventually converge on the same views? The effective altruism community has spent a lot...

#37 - GiveWell picks top charities by estimating the unknowable. James Snowden on how they do it.

16 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

What’s the value of preventing the death of a 5-year-old child, compared to a 20-year-old, or an 80-year-old? The global health community has gener...

#36 - Tanya Singh on ending the operations management bottleneck in effective altruism

11 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Almost nobody is able to do groundbreaking physics research themselves, and by the time his brilliance was appreciated, Einstein was hardly limited by...

#35 - Tara Mac Aulay on the audacity to fix the world without asking permission

21 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

"You don't need permission. You don't need to be allowed to do something that's not in your job description. If you think that it's gonna make your co...

Rob Wiblin on the art/science of a high impact career

08 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Today's episode is a cross-post of an interview I did with The Jolly Swagmen Podcast which came out this week. I recommend regular listeners skip to 2...

#34 - We use the worst voting system that exists. Here's how Aaron Hamlin is going to fix it.

01 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In 1991 Edwin Edwards won the Louisiana gubernatorial election. In 2001, he was found guilty of racketeering and received a 10 year invitation to Fede...

#33 - Anders Sandberg on what if we ended ageing, solar flares & the annual risk of nuclear war

29 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Joseph Stalin had a life-extension program dedicated to making himself immortal. What if he had succeeded?  According to our last guest, Bryan Caplan...

#32 - Bryan Caplan on whether his Case Against Education holds up, totalitarianism, & open borders

22 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Bryan Caplan’s claim in *The Case Against Education* is striking: education doesn’t teach people much, we use little of what we learn, and college...

#31 - Allan Dafoe on defusing the political & economic risks posed by existing AI capabilities

18 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The debate around the impacts of artificial intelligence often centres on ‘superintelligence’ - a general intellect that is much smarter than the ...

#30 - Eva Vivalt on how little social science findings generalize from one study to another

15 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

If we have a study on the impact of a social program in a particular place and time, how confident can we be that we’ll get a similar result if we s...

#29 - Anders Sandberg on 3 new resolutions for the Fermi paradox & how to colonise the universe

08 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Part 2 out now: #33 - Dr Anders Sandberg on what if we ended ageing, solar flares & the annual risk of nuclear war The universe is so vast, yet we...

#28 - Owen Cotton-Barratt on why scientists should need insurance, PhD strategy & fast AI progresses

27 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

A researcher is working on creating a new virus – one more dangerous than any that exist naturally. They believe they’re being as careful as possi...

#27 - Dr Tom Inglesby on careers and policies that reduce global catastrophic biological risks

18 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

How about this for a movie idea: a main character has to prevent a new contagious strain of Ebola spreading around the world. She’s the best of the ...

#26 - Marie Gibbons on how exactly clean meat is made & what's needed to get it in every supermarket

10 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

First, decide on the type of animal. Next, pick the cell type. Then take a small, painless biopsy, and put the cells in a solution that makes them fee...

#25 - Robin Hanson on why we have to lie to ourselves about why we do what we do

28 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

On February 2, 1685, England’s King Charles II was struck by a sudden illness. Fortunately his physicians were the best of the best. To reassure the...

#24 - Stefan Schubert on why it’s a bad idea to break the rules, even if it’s for a good cause

20 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

How honest should we be? How helpful? How friendly? If our society claims to value honesty, for instance, but in reality accepts an awful lot of lying...

#23 - How to actually become an AI alignment researcher, according to Dr Jan Leike

16 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Want to help steer the 21st century’s most transformative technology? First complete an undergrad degree in computer science and mathematics. Priori...

#22 - Leah Utyasheva on the non-profit that figured out how to massively cut suicide rates

07 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

How people kill themselves varies enormously depending on which means are most easily available. In the United States, suicide by firearm stands out. ...

#21 - Holden Karnofsky on times philanthropy transformed the world & Open Phil’s plan to do the same

27 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The Green Revolution averted mass famine during the 20th century. The contraceptive pill gave women unprecedented freedom in planning their own lives....

#20 - Bruce Friedrich on inventing outstanding meat substitutes to end speciesism & factory farming

19 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Before the US Civil War, it was easier for the North to morally oppose slavery. Why? Because unlike the South they weren’t profiting much from its e...

#19 - Samantha Pitts-Kiefer on working next to the White House trying to prevent nuclear war

14 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Rogue elements within a state’s security forces enrich dozens of kilograms of uranium. It’s then assembled into a crude nuclear bomb. The bomb is ...

#18 - Ofir Reich on using data science to end poverty & the spurious action-inaction distinction

31 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Ofir Reich started out doing math in the military, before spending 8 years in tech startups - but then made a sharp turn to become a data scientist fo...

#17 - Will MacAskill on moral uncertainty, utilitarianism & how to avoid being a moral monster

19 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Immanuel Kant is a profoundly influential figure in modern philosophy, and was one of the earliest proponents for universal democracy and internationa...

#16 - Michelle Hutchinson on global priorities research & shaping the ideas of intellectuals

22 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In the 40s and 50s neoliberalism was a fringe movement within economics. But by the 80s it had become a dominant school of thought in public policy, a...