Best The 80000 Hours team Podcasts (2024)

1
Highlights: #196 – Jonathan Birch on the edge cases of sentience and why they matter 25:34

2h ago25:34

25:34

This is a selection of highlights from episode #196 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Jonathan Birch on the edge cases of sentience and why they matter And if you're finding these hig…

1
#199 – Nathan Calvin on California’s AI bill SB 1047 and its potential to shape US AI policy 1:12:37

24m ago1:12:37

1:12:37

"I do think that there is a really significant sentiment among parts of the opposition that it’s not really just that this bill itself is that bad or extreme — when you really drill into it, it feels like one of those things where you read it and it’s like, 'This is the thing that everyone is screaming about?' I think it’s a pretty modest bill in a…

1
#198 – Meghan Barrett on challenging our assumptions about insects 3:48:12

2h ago3:48:12

3:48:12

"This is a group of animals I think people are particularly unfamiliar with. They are especially poorly covered in our science curriculum; they are especially poorly understood, because people don’t spend as much time learning about them at museums; and they’re just harder to spend time with in a lot of ways, I think, for people. So people have pet…

1
#197 – Nick Joseph on whether Anthropic's AI safety policy is up to the task 2:29:26

10m ago2:29:26

2:29:26

The three biggest AI companies — Anthropic, OpenAI, and DeepMind — have now all released policies designed to make their AI models less likely to go rogue or cause catastrophic damage as they approach, and eventually exceed, human capabilities. Are they good enough? That’s what host Rob Wiblin tries to hash out in this interview (recorded May 30) w…

1
Highlights: #195 – Sella Nevo on who's trying to steal frontier AI models, and what they could do with them 18:03

1h ago18:03

18:03

This is a selection of highlights from episode #195 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Sella Nevo on who's trying to steal frontier AI models, and what they could do with them And if y…

1
#196 – Jonathan Birch on the edge cases of sentience and why they matter 2:01:50

1h ago2:01:50

2:01:50

"In the 1980s, it was still apparently common to perform surgery on newborn babies without anaesthetic on both sides of the Atlantic. This led to appalling cases, and to public outcry, and to campaigns to change clinical practice. And as soon as [some courageous scientists] looked for evidence, it showed that this practice was completely indefensib…

1
Highlights: #194 – Vitalik Buterin on defensive acceleration and how to regulate AI when you fear government 35:19

10d ago35:19

35:19

This is a selection of highlights from episode #194 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Vitalik Buterin on defensive acceleration and how to regulate AI when you fear government And if …

1
#195 – Sella Nevo on who's trying to steal frontier AI models, and what they could do with them 2:08:29

12d ago2:08:29

2:08:29

"Computational systems have literally millions of physical and conceptual components, and around 98% of them are embedded into your infrastructure without you ever having heard of them. And an inordinate amount of them can lead to a catastrophic failure of your security assumptions. And because of this, the Iranian secret nuclear programme failed t…

1
Highlights: #193 – Sihao Huang on the risk that US–China AI competition leads to war 24:48

13d ago24:48

24:48

This is a selection of highlights from episode #193 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Sihao Huang on the risk that US–China AI competition leads to war And if you're finding these hig…

1
#194 – Vitalik Buterin on defensive acceleration and how to regulate AI when you fear government 3:04:18

22d ago3:04:18

3:04:18

"If you’re a power that is an island and that goes by sea, then you’re more likely to do things like valuing freedom, being democratic, being pro-foreigner, being open-minded, being interested in trade. If you are on the Mongolian steppes, then your entire mindset is kill or be killed, conquer or be conquered … the breeding ground for basically eve…

1
Highlights: #192 – Annie Jacobsen on what would happen if North Korea launched a nuclear weapon at the US 23:33

1M ago23:33

23:33

This is a selection of highlights from episode #192 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Annie Jacobsen on what would happen if North Korea launched a nuclear weapon at the US And if you…

1
Off the Clock #5: Leaving 80k with Maria Gutierrez Rojas 1:23:23

21d ago1:23:23

1:23:23

You can check out the video version of this episode on YouTube at https://youtu.be/AUuEaYltONg Matt, Bella, and Cody sit down with Maria Gutierrez Rojas to discuss the 80k’s aesthetics, religion (again), bad billionaires, and why it’s hard to be an org that both gives advice and has opinions.By The 80000 Hours team

1
Highlights: #191 (Part 2) – Carl Shulman on government and society after AGI 33:06

25d ago33:06

33:06

This is a selection of highlights from episode #191 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Carl Shulman on government and society after AGI And if you're finding these highlights episodes …

1
#193 – Sihao Huang on the risk that US–China AI competition leads to war 2:23:34

26d ago2:23:34

2:23:34

"You don’t necessarily need world-leading compute to create highly risky AI systems. The biggest biological design tools right now, like AlphaFold’s, are orders of magnitude smaller in terms of compute requirements than the frontier large language models. And China has the compute to train these systems. And if you’re, for instance, building a cybe…

1
#192 – Annie Jacobsen on what would happen if North Korea launched a nuclear weapon at the US 1:54:24

1M ago1:54:24

1:54:24

"Ring one: total annihilation; no cellular life remains. Ring two, another three-mile diameter out: everything is ablaze. Ring three, another three or five miles out on every side: third-degree burns among almost everyone. You are talking about people who may have gone down into the secret tunnels beneath Washington, DC, escaped from the Capitol an…

1
Highlights: #191 (Part 1) – Carl Shulman on the economy and national security after AGI 35:12

1M ago35:12

35:12

This is a selection of highlights from episode #191 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Carl Shulman on the economy and national security after AGI And if you're finding these highlight…

1
#191 (Part 2) – Carl Shulman on government and society after AGI 2:20:32

2M ago2:20:32

2:20:32

This is the second part of our marathon interview with Carl Shulman. The first episode is on the economy and national security after AGI. You can listen to them in either order! If we develop artificial general intelligence that's reasonably aligned with human goals, it could put a fast and near-free superhuman advisor in everyone's pocket. How wou…

1
#191 (Part 1) – Carl Shulman on the economy and national security after AGI 4:14:58

2M ago4:14:58

4:14:58

This is the first part of our marathon interview with Carl Shulman. The second episode is on government and society after AGI. You can listen to them in either order! The human brain does what it does with a shockingly low energy supply: just 20 watts — a fraction of a cent worth of electricity per hour. What would happen if AI technology merely ma…

1
Highlights: #190 – Eric Schwitzgebel on whether the US is conscious 22:22

2M ago22:22

22:22

This is a selection of highlights from episode #190 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Eric Schwitzgebel on whether the US is conscious And if you're finding these highlights episodes …

1
Highlights: #189 – Rachel Glennerster on how “market shaping” could help solve climate change, pandemics, and other global problems 26:27

2M ago26:27

26:27

This is a selection of highlights from episode #189 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Rachel Glennerster on how “market shaping” could help solve climate change, pandemics, and other …

1
#190 – Eric Schwitzgebel on whether the US is conscious 2:00:46

3M ago2:00:46

2:00:46

"One of the most amazing things about planet Earth is that there are complex bags of mostly water — you and me – and we can look up at the stars, and look into our brains, and try to grapple with the most complex, difficult questions that there are. And even if we can’t make great progress on them and don’t come to completely satisfying solutions, …

1
Highlights: #188 – Matt Clancy on whether science is good 26:28

3M ago26:28

26:28

This is a selection of highlights from episode #188 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Matt Clancy on whether science is good And if you're finding these highlights episodes valuable, …

1
Off the Clock #4 (fka Actually After Hours): One Boxing with Julian Hazell 1:15:52

3M ago1:15:52

1:15:52

You can check out the video version of this episode on YouTube at https://youtu.be/R9VGbY7CgOI Matt, Bella, and Cody sit down with Julian Hazell to discuss the UK recession, religion, higher education, and whether being an amateur swordfighter should give you the right to vote.By The 80000 Hours team

1
#189 – Rachel Glennerster on how “market shaping” could help solve climate change, pandemics, and other global problems 2:48:51

3M ago2:48:51

2:48:51

"You can’t charge what something is worth during a pandemic. So we estimated that the value of one course of COVID vaccine in January 2021 was over $5,000. They were selling for between $6 and $40. So nothing like their social value. Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t think that they should have charged $5,000 or $6,000. That’s not ethical. It’s also…

1
Highlights: #187 – Zach Weinersmith on how researching his book turned him from a space optimist into a “space bastard” 26:06

3M ago26:06

26:06

This is a selection of highlights from episode #187 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Zach Weinersmith on how researching his book turned him from a space optimist into a “space basta…

1
#188 – Matt Clancy on whether science is good 2:40:15

3M ago2:40:15

2:40:15

"Suppose we make these grants, we do some of those experiments I talk about. We discover, for example — I’m just making this up — but we give people superforecasting tests when they’re doing peer review, and we find that you can identify people who are super good at picking science. And then we have this much better targeted science, and we’re maki…

1
Highlights: #186 – Dean Spears on why babies are born small in Uttar Pradesh, and how to save their lives 14:55

4M ago14:55

14:55

This is a selection of highlights from episode #186 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Dean Spears on why babies are born small in Uttar Pradesh, and how to save their lives And if you…

1
#187 – Zach Weinersmith on how researching his book turned him from a space optimist into a "space bastard" 3:06:47

3M ago3:06:47

3:06:47

"Earth economists, when they measure how bad the potential for exploitation is, they look at things like, how is labour mobility? How much possibility do labourers have otherwise to go somewhere else? Well, if you are on the one company town on Mars, your labour mobility is zero, which has never existed on Earth. Even in your stereotypical West Vir…

1
Highlights: #185 – Lewis Bollard on the 7 most promising ways to end factory farming, and whether AI is going to be good or bad for animals 22:36

4M ago22:36

22:36

This is a selection of highlights from episode #185 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Lewis Bollard on the 7 most promising ways to end factory farming, and whether AI is going to be …

1
#186 – Dean Spears on why babies are born small in Uttar Pradesh, and how to save their lives 1:18:58

4M ago1:18:58

1:18:58

"I work in a place called Uttar Pradesh, which is a state in India with 240 million people. One in every 33 people in the whole world lives in Uttar Pradesh. It would be the fifth largest country if it were its own country. And if it were its own country, you’d probably know about its human development challenges, because it would have the highest …

1
Highlights: #184 – Zvi Mowshowitz on sleeping on sleeper agents, and the biggest AI updates since ChatGPT 29:31

4M ago29:31

29:31

This is a selection of highlights from episode #184 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode: Zvi Mowshowitz on sleeping on sleeper agents, and the biggest AI updates since ChatGPT And if you…

1
Actually After Hours #3: Finding the Tail with Dwarkesh Patel 1:35:27

4M ago1:35:27

1:35:27

Matt Reardon, Arden Koehler, and Huon Porteous sit down with Dwarkesh Patel to find out how you become a world-famous (among tech intellectuals) podcast host at 23. We also discuss how 80k would have advised 21-year-old Dwarkesh and 80k strategy more broadly. You can check out the video version of this episode on YouTube at https://youtu.be/H5px6CQ…

1
#185 – Lewis Bollard on the 7 most promising ways to end factory farming, and whether AI is going to be good or bad for animals 2:33:12

4M ago2:33:12

2:33:12

"The constraint right now on factory farming is how far can you push the biology of these animals? But AI could remove that constraint. It could say, 'Actually, we can push them further in these ways and these ways, and they still stay alive. And we’ve modelled out every possibility and we’ve found that it works.' I think another possibility, which…

1
#184 – Zvi Mowshowitz on sleeping on sleeper agents, and the biggest AI updates since ChatGPT 3:31:22

5M ago3:31:22

3:31:22

Many of you will have heard of Zvi Mowshowitz as a superhuman information-absorbing-and-processing machine — which he definitely is. As the author of the Substack Don’t Worry About the Vase, Zvi has spent as much time as literally anyone in the world over the last two years tracking in detail how the explosion of AI has been playing out — and he ha…

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