The 80,000 Hours Podcast

80000_Hours
27 Jun 2024 21:03 UTC

About the show

The 80,000 Hours Podcast features unusually in-depth conversations about the world’s most pressing problems and how you can use your career to solve them.

We invite guests pursuing a wide range of career paths – from academics and activists to entrepreneurs and policymakers — to analyse the case for and against working on different issues and figure out which approaches are best for solving them.

The show is produced and edited by Keiran Harris. Get in touch with feedback or guest suggestions by emailing keiran@80000hours.org.

OpenAI’s mas­sive push to make su­per­in­tel­li­gence safe in 4 years or less (Jan Leike on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours8 Aug 2023 18:00 UTC
32 points
1 comment19 min readEA link
(80000hours.org)

Why it makes sense to be op­ti­mistic about the en­vi­ron­ment (Han­nah Ritchie on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours15 Aug 2023 14:21 UTC
44 points
1 comment10 min readEA link

On whether AI will soon cause job loss, lower in­comes, and higher in­equal­ity — or the op­po­site (Michael Webb on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours25 Aug 2023 14:59 UTC
11 points
2 comments18 min readEA link

Get­ting Wash­ing­ton and Sili­con Valley to tame AI (Mustafa Suley­man on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours4 Sep 2023 16:25 UTC
5 points
2 comments10 min readEA link

The per­ils of max­imis­ing the good that you do (Toby Ord on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours14 Sep 2023 12:14 UTC
12 points
0 comments19 min readEA link

Cults that want to kill ev­ery­one, stealth vs wild­fire pan­demics, and how he felt in­vent­ing gene drives (Kevin Esvelt on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours4 Oct 2023 13:58 UTC
38 points
1 comment16 min readEA link

War in space, whether civ­i­liza­tions age, and the best things pos­si­ble in our uni­verse (An­ders Sand­berg on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours9 Oct 2023 14:03 UTC
10 points
2 comments17 min readEA link

What he’s learned as an AI policy in­sider (Tan­tum Col­lins on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours13 Oct 2023 15:01 UTC
11 points
2 comments15 min readEA link

#167 - The re­search gaps hold­ing back al­ter­na­tive pro­teins from mass adop­tion (Seren Kell on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours18 Oct 2023 21:05 UTC
29 points
1 comment11 min readEA link

#168 – Whether deep his­tory says we’re head­ing for an in­tel­li­gence ex­plo­sion (Ian Mor­ris on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours24 Oct 2023 15:24 UTC
11 points
2 comments18 min readEA link

#169 – On whether cash trans­fers cause eco­nomic growth, and keep­ing theft to ac­cept­able lev­els (Paul Nie­haus on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours1 Nov 2023 15:20 UTC
2 points
0 comments12 min readEA link

#170 – How air pol­lu­tion is re­spon­si­ble for ~12% of global deaths — and how to get that num­ber down (San­tosh Har­ish on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours7 Nov 2023 19:38 UTC
16 points
0 comments16 min readEA link

#171 – How top labs have jeop­ar­dised pub­lic health with re­peated biosafety failures (Ali­son Young on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours14 Nov 2023 12:37 UTC
15 points
0 comments11 min readEA link

#172 – Why you should stop read­ing the news (Bryan Ca­plan on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours22 Nov 2023 18:29 UTC
20 points
1 comment20 min readEA link

#173 – Digi­tal minds, and how to avoid sleep­walk­ing into a ma­jor moral catas­tro­phe (Jeff Sebo on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours29 Nov 2023 19:18 UTC
43 points
0 comments18 min readEA link

#174 – Neu­rotech­nol­ogy already be­ing used to con­vict crim­i­nals and ma­nipu­late work­ers (Nita Fara­hany on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours12 Dec 2023 14:07 UTC
26 points
0 comments16 min readEA link

#175 – Prevent­ing lead poi­son­ing for $1.66 per child (Lu­cia Coulter on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours15 Dec 2023 20:15 UTC
76 points
0 comments15 min readEA link

#176 – The fi­nal push for AGI, un­der­stand­ing OpenAI’s lead­er­ship drama, and red-team­ing fron­tier mod­els (Nathan Labenz on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours4 Jan 2024 16:00 UTC
15 points
0 comments22 min readEA link

#177 – Re­cent AI break­throughs and nav­i­gat­ing the grow­ing rift be­tween AI safety and ac­cel­er­a­tionist camps (Nathan Labenz on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours31 Jan 2024 19:37 UTC
15 points
0 comments16 min readEA link

#178 – What the ev­i­dence ac­tu­ally says about preg­nancy and par­ent­ing (Emily Oster on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours2 Feb 2024 18:13 UTC
25 points
0 comments15 min readEA link

#179 – Why evolu­tion left us so vuln­er­a­ble to de­pres­sion and anx­iety (Randy Nesser on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours14 Feb 2024 16:02 UTC
12 points
0 comments16 min readEA link

#180 – Why gullibil­ity and mis­in­for­ma­tion are over­rated (Hugo Mercier on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours26 Feb 2024 19:16 UTC
15 points
0 comments18 min readEA link

#181 – The sci­ence that could keep us healthy in our 80s and be­yond (Laura Dem­ing on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours6 Mar 2024 20:05 UTC
10 points
0 comments12 min readEA link

#182 – Com­par­ing the welfare of hu­mans, chick­ens, pigs, oc­to­puses, bees, and more (Bob Fischer on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours13 Mar 2024 16:54 UTC
54 points
3 comments17 min readEA link

#183 – Cau­sa­tion with­out cor­re­la­tion, money and hap­piness, light­gassing, hype vs value, and more (Spencer Green­berg on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours20 Mar 2024 19:55 UTC
7 points
0 comments15 min readEA link

#184 – Sleep­ing on sleeper agents, and the biggest AI up­dates since ChatGPT (Zvi Mow­show­itz on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours12 Apr 2024 12:22 UTC
46 points
0 comments20 min readEA link

#185 – The 7 most promis­ing ways to end fac­tory farm­ing, and whether AI is go­ing to be good or bad for an­i­mals (Lewis Bol­lard on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours30 Apr 2024 17:20 UTC
63 points
0 comments15 min readEA link

#186 – Why ba­bies are born small in Ut­tar Pradesh, and how to save their lives (Dean Spears on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours1 May 2024 19:16 UTC
23 points
0 comments9 min readEA link

#187 – How re­search­ing his book turned him from a space op­ti­mist into a “space bas­tard” (Zach Wein­er­smith on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours15 May 2024 14:03 UTC
28 points
1 comment18 min readEA link

#188 – On whether sci­ence is good (Matt Clancy on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours24 May 2024 15:04 UTC
13 points
0 comments17 min readEA link

#189 – How “mar­ket shap­ing” could help solve cli­mate change, pan­demics, and other global prob­lems (Rachel Glen­ner­ster on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours31 May 2024 12:21 UTC
18 points
0 comments14 min readEA link

#190 – On whether the US is con­scious (Eric Sch­witzgebel on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours12 Jun 2024 15:14 UTC
7 points
0 comments20 min readEA link

#191 (Part 1) – The econ­omy and na­tional se­cu­rity af­ter AGI (Carl Shul­man on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours27 Jun 2024 19:10 UTC
45 points
0 comments19 min readEA link

#191 (Part 2) – Govern­ment and so­ciety af­ter AGI (Carl Shul­man on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours11 Jul 2024 19:26 UTC
23 points
1 comment18 min readEA link

#192 – What would hap­pen if North Korea launched a nu­clear weapon at the US (An­nie Ja­cob­sen on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours12 Jul 2024 19:38 UTC
13 points
1 comment12 min readEA link

#194 – Defen­sive ac­cel­er­a­tion and how to reg­u­late AI when you fear gov­ern­ment (Vi­talik Bu­terin on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours31 Jul 2024 20:28 UTC
49 points
5 comments21 min readEA link

#195 – Who’s try­ing to steal fron­tier AI mod­els, and what they could do with them (Sella Nevo on the 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours9 Aug 2024 14:45 UTC
29 points
0 comments11 min readEA link

#196 – The edge cases of sen­tience and why they mat­ter (Jonathan Birch on The 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours16 Aug 2024 19:07 UTC
46 points
0 comments13 min readEA link

#197 – On whether An­thropic’s AI safety policy is up to the task (Nick Joseph on The 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours22 Aug 2024 15:34 UTC
9 points
0 comments18 min readEA link

#198 – Challeng­ing our as­sump­tions about in­sects (Meghan Bar­rett on The 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours29 Aug 2024 14:46 UTC
97 points
4 comments16 min readEA link

#199 – Cal­ifor­nia’s AI bill SB 1047 and its po­ten­tial to shape US AI policy (Nathan Calvin on The 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours30 Aug 2024 18:18 UTC
12 points
0 comments10 min readEA link

#200 – What su­perfore­cast­ers and ex­perts think about ex­is­ten­tial risks (Ezra Karger on The 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours6 Sep 2024 17:53 UTC
12 points
2 comments14 min readEA link

#201 – Why your robot but­ler isn’t here yet (Ken Gold­berg on The 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours13 Sep 2024 17:41 UTC
21 points
0 comments12 min readEA link

#202 – The cut­ting edge of anti-age­ing sci­ence (Venki Ra­makr­ish­nan on on The 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours19 Sep 2024 22:41 UTC
13 points
0 comments12 min readEA link

#203 – In­terfer­ing with wild na­ture, ac­cept­ing death, and the ori­gin of com­plex civil­i­sa­tion (Peter God­frey-Smith on The 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours4 Oct 2024 13:00 UTC
14 points
0 comments16 min readEA link

#204 – Mak­ing sense of SBF, and his biggest cri­tiques of effec­tive al­tru­ism (Nate Silver on The 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours17 Oct 2024 20:41 UTC
22 points
2 comments14 min readEA link

#205 – The most in­sane things fish can do (Sébastien Moro on The 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours24 Oct 2024 19:27 UTC
52 points
0 comments16 min readEA link

#206 – The pre­dic­tive brain and how to study con­scious­ness (Anil Seth on The 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours1 Nov 2024 17:51 UTC
13 points
0 comments11 min readEA link

#207 – Why she shut down her char­ity, and why more founders should fol­low her lead (Sarah Eustis-Guthrie on The 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours15 Nov 2024 12:55 UTC
37 points
1 comment15 min readEA link

#208 – The case that TV shows, movies, and nov­els can im­prove the world (Eliz­a­beth Cox on The 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours22 Nov 2024 11:36 UTC
10 points
0 comments17 min readEA link

#209 – OpenAI’s gam­bit to ditch its non­profit (Rose Chan Loui on The 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours27 Nov 2024 20:43 UTC
22 points
0 comments17 min readEA link

#210 – Dis­man­tling the myth that we can’t do any­thing to help wild an­i­mals (Cameron Meyer Shorb on The 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours30 Nov 2024 21:44 UTC
74 points
1 comment17 min readEA link

#211 – Why hous­ing still isn’t fixed and what would ac­tu­ally work (Sam Bow­man on The 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours20 Dec 2024 15:44 UTC
12 points
8 comments25 min readEA link

Emer­gency pod: Elon tries to crash OpenAI’s party (with Rose Chan Loui)

80000_Hours14 Feb 2025 16:29 UTC
21 points
0 comments2 min readEA link

#212 – Why tech­nol­ogy is un­stop­pable & how to shape AI de­vel­op­ment any­way (Allan Dafoe on The 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours17 Feb 2025 16:38 UTC
16 points
0 comments19 min readEA link

Emer­gency pod: Judge plants a le­gal time bomb un­der OpenAI (with Rose Chan Loui)

80000_Hours7 Mar 2025 19:24 UTC
62 points
18 comments2 min readEA link

#213 – AI caus­ing a “cen­tury in a decade” — and how we’re com­pletely un­pre­pared (Will MacAskill on The 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours11 Mar 2025 17:55 UTC
24 points
0 comments22 min readEA link

#214 – Con­trol­ling AI that wants to take over – so we can use it any­way (Buck Sh­legeris on The 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours4 Apr 2025 19:59 UTC
17 points
0 comments32 min readEA link

#216 – Why gov­ern­ments in Bri­tain and el­se­where can’t get any­thing done – and how to fix it (Ian Dunt on The 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours2 May 2025 15:43 UTC
9 points
0 comments24 min readEA link

Emer­gency pod: Did OpenAI give up, or is this just a new trap? (with Rose Chan Loui)

80000_Hours9 May 2025 15:10 UTC
6 points
0 comments2 min readEA link

Emer­gency pod: Don’t be­lieve OpenAI’s “non­profit” spin (with Tyler Whit­mer)

80000_Hours15 May 2025 16:52 UTC
37 points
0 comments2 min readEA link

#217 – The most im­por­tant graph in AI right now (Beth Barnes on The 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours2 Jun 2025 16:52 UTC
16 points
1 comment26 min readEA link

#218 – Why Trump is aban­don­ing US hege­mony – and that’s prob­a­bly good (Hugh White on The 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours12 Jun 2025 20:59 UTC
30 points
0 comments28 min readEA link

#219 – Graphs AI com­pa­nies would pre­fer you didn’t (fully) un­der­stand (Toby Ord on The 80,000 Hours Pod­cast)

80000_Hours25 Jun 2025 18:23 UTC
19 points
0 comments27 min readEA link

What would it take for AI to dis­em­power us? Ryan Green­blatt on take­off dy­nam­ics, rogue de­ploy­ments, and al­ign­ment risks

80000_Hours8 Jul 2025 18:10 UTC
8 points
0 comments33 min readEA link

Re­build­ing af­ter apoc­a­lypse: What 13 ex­perts say about bounc­ing back

80000_Hours15 Jul 2025 19:39 UTC
7 points
0 comments2 min readEA link

How not to lose your job to AI

80000_Hours1 Aug 2025 18:27 UTC
27 points
2 comments29 min readEA link

Ex­plor­ing AI Welfare: Kyle Fish on Con­scious­ness, Mo­ral Pa­tient­hood, and Early Ex­per­i­ments with Claude

80000_Hours28 Aug 2025 19:27 UTC
9 points
0 comments22 min readEA link

Neel Nanda on Mechanis­tic In­ter­pretabil­ity: Progress, Limits, and Paths to Safer AI

80000_Hours8 Sep 2025 17:02 UTC
6 points
0 comments31 min readEA link

Neel Nanda on Mechanis­tic In­ter­pretabil­ity: Progress, Limits, and Paths to Safer AI (part 2)

80000_Hours15 Sep 2025 19:06 UTC
20 points
1 comment16 min readEA link

In­side the Bi­den ad­min’s AI Policy ap­proach | Jake Sul­li­van, Bi­den’s NSA | via The Cog­ni­tive Revolution

80000_Hours1 Oct 2025 13:56 UTC
6 points
1 comment1 min readEA link

An­drew Sny­der-Beat­tie on the low-tech plan to patch hu­man­ity’s great­est weakness

80000_Hours2 Oct 2025 17:05 UTC
82 points
0 comments20 min readEA link

Daniel Koko­ta­jlo on AI 2027: Race Dy­nam­ics, Robot Economies, and the Nar­row Path to a Good Future

80000_Hours21 Oct 2025 19:51 UTC
7 points
1 comment18 min readEA link

Holden Karnofsky on dozens of amaz­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to make AI safer — and all his AGI takes

80000_Hours31 Oct 2025 12:13 UTC
70 points
0 comments25 min readEA link

He­len Toner on the geopoli­tics of AI in China and the Mid­dle East

80000_Hours5 Nov 2025 17:15 UTC
4 points
0 comments19 min readEA link

OpenAI: The non­profit re­fuses to die (with Tyler Whit­mer)

80000_Hours11 Nov 2025 21:55 UTC
19 points
0 comments5 min readEA link

Eileen Yam on how we’re com­pletely out of touch with what the pub­lic thinks about AI

80000_Hours20 Nov 2025 17:37 UTC
5 points
1 comment22 min readEA link

Rob & Luisa chat kids, the fer­til­ity crash, and how the ’50s in­vented par­ent­ing that makes us miserable

80000_Hours25 Nov 2025 23:06 UTC
17 points
0 comments22 min readEA link

Mar­ius Hobb­hahn on the race to solve AI schem­ing be­fore mod­els go superhuman

80000_Hours3 Dec 2025 21:08 UTC
6 points
0 comments17 min readEA link

Dean Ball on how AI is a huge deal — but we shouldn’t reg­u­late it yet

80000_Hours10 Dec 2025 17:56 UTC
13 points
0 comments17 min readEA link

Paul Scharre on how AI could trans­form the na­ture of war

80000_Hours18 Dec 2025 17:09 UTC
7 points
0 comments18 min readEA link

An­dreas Mo­gensen on what we owe ‘philo­soph­i­cal Vul­cans’ and un­con­scious AIs

80000_Hours19 Dec 2025 19:33 UTC
12 points
0 comments25 min readEA link

2025 High­light-o-thon: Oops! All Bests

80000_Hours30 Dec 2025 15:11 UTC
9 points
0 comments2 min readEA link