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're finding these highlights episodes valuable, please let us know by emailing podcast@80000hours.org.

Highlights put together by Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong

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 good or bad for animals

And if you're finding these highlights episodes valuable, please let us know by emailing podcast@80000hours.org.

Highlights put together by Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong

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're finding these highlights episodes valuable, please let us know by emailing podcast@80000hours.org.

Highlights put together by Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong

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/H5px6CQTe8o

Topics covered:

• How did Dwarkesh start landing world-class guests?
• Why is Bryan Caplan such an easy get?
• How does Dwarkesh think about ideological labels?
• Dwarkesh explains his pivot towards AI
• Do intellectuals matter for progress?
• Was Microsoft or the Gates Foundation more impactful?
• Do biographies ever matter more than their subjects?
• How would 80k have advised young Dwarkesh?
• What does motivate people in government and what should motivate people in government?
• Should do-gooders seek power?
• Should 80k advice always aim at the tails?
• Are people just layering their simple political memes onto the AI debate?
• How do you boost people’s agency?
• How do we feel about self-perceived entrepreneurs?
• What’s the tradeoff between having the right initiative and having the right ideas?
• How does 80k’s advice deal with AI timelines?
• Are 80k users self-selected for not being the highest potential people?
• Should you assume that everyone can make it to the extreme tail?
• In how many areas should 80k have detailed advice?
• What happened to the EA brand?

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 effective altruism groups, where Rob thinks people get EA most seriously wrong, what Rob fears most about rogue AI, the double-edged sword of AI-empowered governments, and flattening the curve of AI's social disruption.

And if you enjoy this, you could also check out episode 101 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast: Robert Wright on using cognitive empathy to save the world.

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 value, and more

And if you're finding these highlights episodes valuable, please let us know by emailing podcast@80000hours.org.

Highlights put together by Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong

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 you're finding these highlights episodes valuable, please let us know by emailing podcast@80000hours.org.

Highlights put together by Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong

"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 kind of war. And those kinds of interventions — war limitation, intrawar escalation management, civil defence — those are kind of the seatbelts and airbags of the nuclear world. So to borrow a phrase from one of my colleagues, right-of-boom is a class of interventions for when “shit hits the fan.” —Christian Ruhl

In this episode of 80k After Hours, Luisa Rodriguez and Christian Ruhl discuss underrated best bets to avert civilisational collapse from global catastrophic risks — things like great power war, frontier military technologies, and nuclear winter.

Links to learn more, summary, and full transcript.

They cover:

• How the geopolitical situation has changed in recent years into a “three-body problem” between the US, Russia, and China.
• How adding AI-enabled technologies into the mix makes things even more unstable and unpredictable.
• Why Christian recommends many philanthropists focus on “right-of-boom” interventions — those that mitigate the damage after a catastrophe — over traditional preventative measures.
• Concrete things policymakers should be considering to reduce the devastating effects of unthinkable tragedies.
• And on a more personal note, Christian’s experience of having a stutter.

Who this episode is for:

• People interested in the most cost-effective ways to prevent nuclear war, such as:
  • Deescalating after accidental nuclear use.
  • Civil defence and war termination.
  • Mitigating nuclear winter.

Who this episode isn’t for:

• People interested in the least cost-effective ways to prevent nuclear war, such as:
  • Coating every nuclear weapon on Earth in solid gold so they’re no longer functional.
  • Creating a TV show called The Real Housewives of Nuclear Winter about the personal and professional lives of women in Beverly Hills after a nuclear holocaust.
  • A multibillion dollar programme to invent a laser beam that could write permanent messages on the Moon, and using it just once to spell out #nonukesnovember.

Chapters:

• The three-body problem (00:04:11)
• Effect of AI (00:07:58)
• What we have going for us, and not (00:13:32)
• Right-of-boom interventions (00:17:50)
• Deescalating after accidental nuclear use (00:24:23)
• Civil defence and war termination (00:30:40)
• Mitigating nuclear winter (00:37:07)
• Planning for a postwar political environment (00:40:19)
• Experience of having a stutter (00:53:52)
• Christian’s archaeological excavation in Guatemala (01:09:51)

Producer: Keiran Harris
Audio Engineering Lead: Ben Cordell
Technical editing: Ben Cordell and Milo McGuire
Content editing: Katy Moore, Luisa Rodriguez, and Keiran Harris
Transcriptions: Katy Moore

“Gershwin – Rhapsody in Blue, original 1924 version” by Jason Weinberger is licensed under creative commons