Joe Carlsmith is a writer, researcher, and philosopher. He works as a senior research analyst at Open Philanthropy, where he focuses on existential risk from advanced artificial intelligence. He also writes independently about various topics in philosophy and futurism, and holds a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Oxford. You can find …

Eric Schwitzgebel is a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. His main interests include connections between empirical psychology and philosophy of mind and the nature of belief. His book The Weirdness of the World can be found here. We talk about: The possibility of digital consciousness Policy ideas for avoiding major…

Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley is an associate professor at George Mason University and Deputy Director of their Biodefence Programme In this episode we talk about: Where the belief that 'bioweapons are easy to make' came from and why it has been difficult to change Why transferring tacit knowledge is so difficult -- and the particular challenges that …

In this bonus episode we are sharing an episode by another podcast: How I Learned To Love Shrimp. It is co-hosted by Amy Odene and James Ozden, who together are "showcasing innovative and impactful ways to help animals". In this interview they speak to David Coman-Hidy, who is the former President of The Humane –League, one of the largest farm anim…

Michelle Lavery is a Program Associate with Open Philanthropy’s Farm Animal Welfare team, with a focus on the science and study of animal behaviour & welfare. You can see more links and a full transcript at hearthisidea.com/episodes/lavery In this episode we talk about: How do scientists study animal emotions in the first place? How is a "science" …

Dr Richard Bruns is a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, and before that was a Senior Economist at the US Food and Drug Administration (the FDA). In this episode we talk about the importance of indoor air quality (IAQ), and how to improve it. Including: Estimating the DALY cost of unclean indoor air from pathogens and p…

Saloni Dattani is a Researcher at Our World in Data, and a founder & editor at the online magazine Works in Progress. She holds a PhD in psychiatric genetics from King’s College London. You can see more links and a full transcript at hearthisidea.com/episodes/dattani. In this episode we talk about: The history of malaria and attempts to eradicate i…

Liv Boeree is a former poker champion turned science communicator and podcaster, with a background in astrophysics. In 2014, she founded the nonprofit Raising for Effective Giving, which has raised more than $14 million for effective charities. Before retiring from professional poker in 2019, Liv was the Female Player of the Year for three years ru…

Jon Y is the creator of the Asianometry YouTube channel and accompanying newsletter. He describes his channel as making "video essays on business, economics, and history. Sometimes about Asia, but not always." You can see more links and a full transcript at hearthisidea.com/episodes/asianometry In this episode we talk about: Compute trends driving …

Steven Teles s is a Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University and a Senior Fellow at the Niskanen Center. His work focuses on American politics and he written several books on topics such as elite politics, the judiciary, and mass incarceration. You can see more links and a full transcript at hearthisidea.com/teles In this episode …

Guive Assadi is a Research Scholar at the Center for the Governance of AI. Guive’s research focuses on the conceptual clarification of, and prioritisation among, potential risks posed by emerging technologies. He holds a master’s in history from Cambridge University, and a bachelor’s from UC Berkeley. In this episode, we discuss Guive's paper, Will…

Michael Cohen is is a DPhil student at the University of Oxford with Mike Osborne. He will be starting a postdoc with Professor Stuart Russell at UC Berkeley, with the Center for Human-Compatible AI. His research considers the expected behaviour of generally intelligent artificial agents, with a view to designing agents that we can expect to behave…

Katja Grace is a researcher and writer. She runs AI Impacts, a research project trying to incrementally answer decision-relevant questions about the future of artificial intelligence (AI). Katja blogs primarily at worldspiritsockpuppet, and indirectly at Meteuphoric, Worldly Positions, LessWrong and the EA Forum. We discuss: What is AI Impacts work…

Michael Aird is a senior research manager at Rethink Priorities, where he co-leads the Artificial Intelligence Governance and Strategy team alongside Amanda El-Dakhakhni. Before that, he conducted nuclear risk research for Rethink Priorities and longtermist macrostrategy research for Convergence Analysis, the Center on Long-Term Risk, and the Futur…

Ben Garfinkel is a Research Fellow at the University of Oxford and Acting Director of the Centre for the Governance of AI. In this episode we talk about: An overview of AI governance space, and disentangling concrete research questions that Ben would like to see more work on Seeing how existing arguments for the risks from transformative AI have he…

Anders Sandberg is a researcher, futurist, transhumanist and author. He holds a PhD in computational neuroscience from Stockholm University, and is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford. His research covers human enhancement, exploratory engineering, and 'grand futures' for humanity. This…

Rory Stewart is the President of GiveDirectly and a visiting fellow at Yale’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. Before that, Rory was (amongst other things) a Member of Parliament in the UK, a Professor in Human Rights at Harvard, and a diplomat. He is also the author of several books and co-hosts the podcast The Rest Is Politics. In this episo…

Jaime Sevilla is the Director of Epoch, a team of researchers investigating and forecasting the development of advanced AI. This is his second time on the podcast. Over the next few episodes, we will be exploring the potential for catastrophe cause by advanced artificial intelligence. Why? First, you might think that AI is likely to become transfor…

Chris Miller is an Associate Professor of International History at Tufts University and author of the book “Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology” (the Financial Times Business Book of the Year). He is also a Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and Eurasia Director at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. O…

AI might bring huge benefits — if we avoid the risks. This episode is a rebroadcast of an article written for 80,000 Hours Preventing an AI-related catastrophe. It was written by Benjamin Hilton and narrated by Perrin Walker for Type III Audio. The full url is: 80000hours.org/problem-profiles/artificial-intelligence Why are we sharing this article …

A full writeup of this episode, including references and a transcript, is available on our website: https://hearthisidea.com/episodes/robichaud. Carl Robichaud co-leads Longview Philanthropy’s programme on nuclear weapons. We discuss: Lessons from the Ukraine crisis China's future as a nuclear power Nuclear near-misses The Reykjavik Summit, Acheson…

Damon Binder is a research analyst at Open Philanthropy. His research focuses on potential risks from pandemics and from biotechnology. He previously worked as a research scholar at the University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, where he studied existential risks. Prior to that he completed his PhD in theoretical physics at Princeton Univ…

A full writeup of this episode, including references and a transcript, is available on our website: https://hearthisidea.com/episodes/nemet Greg Nemet is a a Professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the La Follette School of Public Affairs and an Andrew Carnegie Fellow. He is also the author of How Solar Energy Became Cheap We discuss: T…

A full writeup of this episode, including references and a transcript, is available on our website: https://hearthisidea.com/episodes/erwan Dewi Erwan is a co-founder of BlueDot Impact, the Biosecurity Advisor to the Cambridge Existential Risk Initiative, and the previous Executive Director ofEffective Altruism Cambridge. We discuss: Setting up Blu…

A full writeup of this episode, including references and a transcript, is available on our website:hearthisidea.com/episodes/pannu-monrad Jassi Pannu is a Resident Physician at Stanford, a Visiting Scholar at John Hopkins, and a Fellow at the Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative. Joshua Monrad is a Biosecurity Program Officer at Effective Giv…

A full writeup of this episode, including references and a transcript, is available on our website: hearthisidea.com/episodes/mathieu Edouard Mathieu is the Head of Data at Our World in Data (OWID), a scientific online publication that focuses on large global problems such as poverty, disease, hunger, climate change, war, existential risks, and ine…

A full writeup of this episode, including references and a transcript, is available on our website: hearthisidea.com/episodes/alexanian-ahuja Tessa Alexanian is the Safety & Security Program Officer at the iGEM Foundation, which organises a worldwide competition in synthetic biology and helps foster a collaborative community. She is a fellow at the…

Michael Aird is a senior research manager at Rethink Priorities, where he co-leads the Artificial Intelligence Governance and Strategy team alongside Amanda El-Dakhakhni. Before that, he conducted nuclear risk research for Rethink Priorities and longtermist macrostrategy research for Convergence Analysis, the Center on Long-Term Risk, and the Futur…

A full writeup of this episode is available on our website: hearthisidea.com/episodes/esvelt-sandbrink. Kevin Esvelt is an assistant professor at the MIT Media Lab, where he is director of the Sculpting Evolution group, which invents new ways to study and influence the evolution of ecosystems. He helped found the SecureDNA Project and the Nucleic A…

In this episode, Fin and Luca celebrate 50 episodes of Hear This Idea: all the highs, lows, and near-disasters along the way. We chat about: The HTI origin story Favourite behind the scenes moments Should we argue with guests more? Mistakes we've made (and are still making?) What we've learned about asking better questions Starting projects from sc…

Professor Doyne Farmer is the Baillie Gifford Professor in Mathematics at Oxford, the Director of the Complexity Economics programme at INET, and an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. In our conversation we discuss: How Doyne and his friends used physics and hidden computers to beat the roulette wheel in Las Vegas casinos Advancing econo…

Ajay Karpur is a senior research software engineer at RAND, working with the Meselson Center. He's hoping to start tweeting again soon, at @ajaykarpur. Joining as a guest co-host on this episode was Janvi Ahuja, who is a PhD student in computational biology at Oxford University, and part of the Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security ‘Emerging Lea…

Dr Spencer R. Weart served as the Director of the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics from 1974 to 2009. He is the author of several books, including The Discovery of Global Warming and The Rise of Nuclear Fear. In our conversation, we discuss: How climate science emerged, what it took for scientists to form a consens…

Jason Crawford is the founder of The Roots of Progress, a nonprofit dedicated to establishing a new philosophy of progress for the 21st century. He writes and speaks about the history and philosophy of progress, especially in technology and industry. In our conversation we discuss — What progress is, and why it matters (maybe more than you think) H…

Cristina Bicchieri is the S. J. Patterson Harvie Professor of Social Thought and Comparative Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania. In our conversation we discuss — How to define social norms and distinguish them from similar concepts How social norms evolve and why they often persist, even in situations where they are harmful Real world policy …

Lord Bird is the co-founder of The Big Issue, a magazine supporting street vendors who are homeless, a crossbench peer in the House of Lords, and co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Groups on Future Generations. In our conversation, we discuss — The Future Generations Bill, currently being discussed in the UK Parliament Causes of political shor…

Sam Hilton is the Research Director at Charity Entrepreneurship, the Parliamentary Coordinator at the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for Future Generations, and a Research Affiliate at the Center for the Study of Existential Risk. In our conversation, we discuss — Charity Entrepreneurship's plans for the 2022 Incubation Program Exploratory Altr…

Glen Weyl is Microsoft’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer Political Economist and Social Technologist (OCTOPEST), where he advises Microsoft’s senior leaders on macroeconomics, geopolitics and the future of technology. Glen also co-authored Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society; a book about "Revolutionary ide…

Habiba Islam is a member of the 80,000 Hours career advising team. First, the two most important links: Apply to receive free career coaching: 80000hours.org/hti Apply to join the 80k career advising team here In this conversation, we talk about — How to begin planning a high-impact career What one-on-one calls with 80k are like (and why you might …

Michael Bhaskar is a writer, researcher and publisher. He is a former consultant Writer in Residence at DeepMind, and most recently he wrote a book called Human Frontiers, which tries to answer the question: “why has the flow of big, world-changing ideas slowed down?” In our conversation, we discuss — The 'Adams curve' How so much of the modern wor…

Mike Hinge is a Senior Economist at ALLFED (Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters). In our interview, we discuss: Why nuclear fallout blocking sunlight could be one of the most extreme threats to the global food supply, and how this compares to the risk from climate change; How scientists and ALLFED model the fallout of nuclear winter, how it aff…

Keith Frankish is a philosopher of mind. He is an Honorary Reader at the University of Sheffield, UK, Visiting Research Fellow with The Open University, and adjunct Professor with the Brain and Mind Programme at the University of Crete. In our interview, we discuss: What is the hard problem of consciousness? What is the illusionist theory of consci…

Christoph Winter is an Assistant Professor of Law at ITAM in Mexico, a Visiting Scholar in Psychology at Harvard, and the founder of the Legal Priorities Project In our interview, we discuss: A global survey of legal academics about protecting future generations; How constitutional law might best help in this effort; Endangerment law and the "risk …

Gillian Hadfield is Director of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society. She is a Professor of Law and Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Toronto. In our interview, we discuss: Why humans invented law, and what Gillian describes as "the demand side" for legal infrastructure; Why social norms continue to be impo…

Bryan Caplan is Professor of Economics at George Mason University and the author of Open Borders, The Myth of the Rational Voter, The Case Against Education, and Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids. In our interview, we discuss: Causes of poverty Charter cities The case for open borders Democracy — is it overrated? Why do voters keep choosing bad pol…

Ben Todd is the CEO & founder of 80,000 Hours, and helped to start the effective altruism movement. 80,000 Hours is a non-profit that provides free research and support to help people find careers that effectively tackle the world’s most pressing problems. In our interview, we discuss: Why your choice of career could be the most important ethical d…

Anders Sandberg is a researcher, futurist, transhumanist and author. He holds a PhD in computational neuroscience from Stockholm University, and is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford. His research covers the ethics of human enhancement, estimating the capabilities of future technologie…

Professor Jeffrey Sachs is the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and author of many bestselling books. In this episode, we talk about The need to reform the international financial system; The role of mitigating global catastrophic risk in sustai…

Matt Ives is a Senior Research Associate in Complex Systems Economic Modelling at the University of Oxford. We discuss the reasons behind the astonishing decline in costs of renewable technologies, especially solar power, and the implications this has for fighting climate change. We also touch on modelling energy systems, financial discolour of cli…

Armond Cohen is the executive director of the Clean Air Task Force. CATF has been rated as the most cost-effective climate change charity, including by organisations such as Founder's Pledge, SoGive, and Giving Green. You can read much more about the topics we cover in this episode in our accompanying write-up: hearthisidea.com/episodes/armond. The…