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 matched what evolution has already managed, and could accomplish the work of top human professionals given a 20-watt power supply? Many people sort of consider that hypo…

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 …

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 …

"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, …

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, …

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

"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…

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…

"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…

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…

"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…

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 …

"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 …

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…

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…

"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…

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…

This is a cross-post of an interview Rob Wiblin did on Robert Wright's Nonzero podcast in January 2024. You can get access to full episodes of that show by subscribing to the Nonzero Newsletter. They talk about Sam Bankman-Fried, virtue ethics, the growing influence of longtermism, what role EA played in the OpenAI board drama, the culture of local…

This is a selection of highlights from episode #183 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: Spencer Greenberg on causation without correlation, money and happiness, lightgassing, hype vs va…

Today’s release is a reading of our career review of AI governance and policy, written and narrated by Cody Fenwick. Advanced AI systems could have massive impacts on humanity and potentially pose global catastrophic risks, and there are opportunities in the broad field of AI governance to positively shape how society responds to and prepares for t…

This is a selection of highlights from episode #182 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: Bob Fischer on comparing the welfare of humans, chickens, pigs, octopuses, bees, and more And if …

"We really, really want to make sure that nuclear war never breaks out. But we also know — from all of the examples of the Cold War, all these close calls — that it very well could, as long as there are nuclear weapons in the world. So if it does, we want to have some ways of preventing that from turning into a civilisation-threatening, cataclysmic…

This is a selection of highlights from episode #181 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: Laura Deming on the science that could keep us healthy in our 80s and beyond And if you're findin…

You can check out the video version of this episode on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFEb8ICWJQQ In this episode of our new podcast project, Matt Reardon, Bella Forristal, and Arden Koehler sit down with Joel Becker to find out what’s great about America, what was not so great about FTX, and invite you to port back to the time when Ard…

"When a friend comes to me with a decision, and they want my thoughts on it, very rarely am I trying to give them a really specific answer, like, 'I solved your problem.' What I’m trying to do often is give them other ways of thinking about what they’re doing, or giving different framings. A classic example of this would be someone who’s been worki…

This is a selection of highlights from episode #180 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: Hugo Mercier on why gullibility and misinformation are overrated And if you're finding these high…

"[One] thing is just to spend time thinking about the kinds of things animals can do and what their lives are like. Just how hard a chicken will work to get to a nest box before she lays an egg, the amount of labour she’s willing to go through to do that, to think about how important that is to her. And to realise that we can quantify that, and see…

"The question I care about is: What do I want to do? Like, when I'm 80, how strong do I want to be? OK, and then if I want to be that strong, how well do my muscles have to work? OK, and then if that's true, what would they have to look like at the cellular level for that to be true? Then what do we have to do to make that happen? In my head, it's …

This is a selection of highlights from episode #179 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: Randy Nesse on why evolution left us so vulnerable to depression and anxiety And if you're findin…

The World Economic Forum’s global risks survey of 1,400 experts, policymakers, and industry leaders ranked misinformation and disinformation as the number one global risk over the next two years — ranking it ahead of war, environmental problems, and other threats from AI. And the discussion around misinformation and disinformation has shifted to fo…

Matt, Bella, and Cody sit down with Chana Messinger to find out what she does, how to insulate ourselves from harsh realities, and whether pub trivia is complete waste of time. You can find Chana’s long-defunct blog at: https://themerelyreal.wordpress.com/ Update February 20, 2024: The 'steelman' bounty has been claimed! You can also find a full vi…

This is a selection of highlights from episode #178 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: Emily Oster on what the evidence actually says about pregnancy and parenting And if you're findin…

Mental health problems like depression and anxiety affect enormous numbers of people and severely interfere with their lives. By contrast, we don’t see similar levels of physical ill health in young people. At any point in time, something like 20% of young people are working through anxiety or depression that’s seriously interfering with their live…

This is a selection of highlights from episode #177 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: Nathan Labenz on recent AI breakthroughs and navigating the growing rift between AI safety and ac…

"I think at various times — before you have the kid, after you have the kid — it's useful to sit down and think about: What do I want the shape of this to look like? What time do I want to be spending? Which hours? How do I want the weekends to look? The things that are going to shape the way your day-to-day goes, and the time you spend with your k…