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80,000 Hours Podcast

348 episodes - English - Latest episode: 17 days ago - ★★★★★ - 236 ratings

Unusually in-depth conversations about the world's most pressing problems and what you can do to solve them.

Subscribe by searching for '80000 Hours' wherever you get podcasts.

Produced by Keiran Harris. Hosted by Rob Wiblin and Luisa Rodriguez.

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Episodes

The ten episodes of this show you should listen to first

April 15, 2021 16:50 - 3 minutes - 1.47 MB

Today we're launching a new podcast feed that might be useful to you and people you know. It's called 'Effective Altruism: An Introduction', and it's a carefully chosen selection of ten episodes of this show, with various new intros and outros to guide folks through them. Basically, as the number of episodes of this show has grown, it has become less and less practical to ask new subscribers to go back and listen through most of our archives. So naturally new subscribers want to k...

#96 – Nina Schick on disinformation and the rise of synthetic media

April 06, 2021 21:02 - 2 hours - 55.2 MB

You might have heard fears like this in the last few years: What if Donald Trump was woken up in the middle of the night and shown a fake video — indistinguishable from a real one — in which Kim Jong Un announced an imminent nuclear strike on the U.S.? Today’s guest Nina Schick, author of Deepfakes: The Coming Infocalypse, thinks these concerns were the result of hysterical reporting, and that the barriers to entry in terms of making a very sophisticated ‘deepfake’ video today are ...

#96 - Nina Schick on disinformation and the rise of synthetic media

April 06, 2021 21:02 - 2 hours - 55 MB

You might have heard fears like this in the last few years: What if Donald Trump was woken up in the middle of the night and shown a fake video - indistinguishable from a real one - in which Kim Jong Un announced an imminent nuclear strike on the U.S.? Today's guest Nina Schick, author of Deepfakes: The Coming Infocalypse, thinks these concerns were the result of hysterical reporting, and that the barriers to entry in terms of making a very sophisticated 'deepfake' video today are a lot hig...

#95 – Kelly Wanser on whether to deliberately intervene in the climate

March 26, 2021 19:21 - 1 hour - 41 MB

How long do you think it’ll be before we’re able to bend the weather to our will? A massive rainmaking program in China, efforts to seed new oases in the Arabian peninsula, or chemically induce snow for skiers in Colorado. 100 years? 50 years? 20? Those who know how to write a teaser hook for a podcast episode will have correctly guessed that all these things are already happening today. And the techniques being used could be turned to managing climate change as well. Today’s gues...

#95 - Kelly Wanser on whether to deliberately intervene in the climate

March 26, 2021 19:21 - 1 hour - 38.5 MB

How long do you think it'll be before we're able to bend the weather to our will? A massive rainmaking program in China, efforts to seed new oases in the Arabian peninsula, or chemically induce snow for skiers in Colorado. 100 years? 50 years? 20? Those who know how to write a teaser hook for a podcast episode will have correctly guessed that all these things are already happening today. And the techniques being used could be turned to managing climate change as well. Today's guest, Kelly ...

#94 – Ezra Klein on aligning journalism, politics, and what matters most

March 20, 2021 21:00 - 1 hour - 48.6 MB

How many words in U.S. newspapers have been spilled on tax policy in the past five years? And how many words on CRISPR? Or meat alternatives? Or how AI may soon automate the majority of jobs? When people look back on this era, is the interesting thing going to have been fights over whether or not the top marginal tax rate was 39.5% or 35.4%, or is it going to be that human beings started to take control of human evolution; that we stood on the brink of eliminating immeasurable level...

#94 - Ezra Klein on aligning journalism, politics, and what matters most

March 20, 2021 21:00 - 1 hour - 48.2 MB

How many words in U.S. newspapers have been spilled on tax policy in the past five years? And how many words on CRISPR? Or meat alternatives? Or how AI may soon automate the majority of jobs? When people look back on this era, is the interesting thing going to have been fights over whether or not the top marginal tax rate was 39.5% or 35.4%, or is it going to be that human beings started to take control of human evolution; that we stood on the brink of eliminating immeasurable levels of suff...

#93 - Andy Weber on rendering bioweapons obsolete & ending the new nuclear arms race

March 12, 2021 22:54 - 1 hour - 52.3 MB

COVID-19 has provided a vivid reminder of the power of biological threats. But the threat doesn't come from natural sources alone. Weaponized contagious diseases - which were abandoned by the United States, but developed in large numbers by the Soviet Union, right up until its collapse - have the potential to spread globally and kill just as many as an all-out nuclear war. For five years today's guest - Andy Weber - was the US Assistant Secretary of Defense responsible for biological and oth...

#93 – Andy Weber on rendering bioweapons obsolete & ending the new nuclear arms race

March 12, 2021 22:54 - 1 hour - 52.6 MB

COVID-19 has provided a vivid reminder of the power of biological threats. But the threat doesn't come from natural sources alone. Weaponized contagious diseases — which were abandoned by the United States, but developed in large numbers by the Soviet Union, right up until its collapse — have the potential to spread globally and kill just as many as an all-out nuclear war. For five years today’s guest — Andy Weber — was the US Assistant Secretary of Defense responsible for biologica...

#92 - Brian Christian on the alignment problem

March 05, 2021 20:59 - 2 hours - 80.5 MB

Brian Christian is a bestselling author with a particular knack for accurately communicating difficult or technical ideas from both mathematics and computer science. Listeners loved our episode about his book Algorithms to Live By - so when the team read his new book, The Alignment Problem, and found it to be an insightful and comprehensive review of the state of the research into making advanced AI useful and reliably safe, getting him back on the show was a no-brainer. Brian has so much o...

#92 – Brian Christian on the alignment problem

March 05, 2021 20:59 - 2 hours - 81 MB

Brian Christian is a bestselling author with a particular knack for accurately communicating difficult or technical ideas from both mathematics and computer science. Listeners loved our episode about his book Algorithms to Live By — so when the team read his new book, The Alignment Problem, and found it to be an insightful and comprehensive review of the state of the research into making advanced AI useful and reliably safe, getting him back on the show was a no-brainer. Brian has ...

#91 – Lewis Bollard on big wins against factory farming and how they happened

February 15, 2021 16:37 - 2 hours - 70.3 MB

I suspect today's guest, Lewis Bollard, might be the single best person in the world to interview to get an overview of all the methods that might be effective for putting an end to factory farming and what broader lessons we can learn from the experiences of people working to end cruelty in animal agriculture. That's why I interviewed him back in 2017, and it's why I've come back for an updated second dose four years later. That conversation became a touchstone resource for anyone...

#91 - Lewis Bollard on big wins against factory farming and how they happened

February 15, 2021 16:37 - 2 hours - 70.2 MB

I suspect today's guest, Lewis Bollard, might be the single best person in the world to interview to get an overview of all the methods that might be effective for putting an end to factory farming and what broader lessons we can learn from the experiences of people working to end cruelty in animal agriculture. That's why I interviewed him back in 2017, and it's why I've come back for an updated second dose four years later. That conversation became a touchstone resource for anyone wanting ...

Rob Wiblin on how he ended up the way he is

February 03, 2021 16:53 - 1 hour - 54.3 MB

This is a crosspost of an episode of the Eureka Podcast. The interviewer is Misha Saul, a childhood friend of Rob's, who he has known for over 20 years. While it's not an episode of our own show, we decided to share it with subscribers because it's fun, and because it touches on personal topics that we don't usually cover on the show. Rob and Misha cover: • How Rob's parents shaped who he is (if indeed they did) • Their shared teenage obsession with philosophy, which eventually...

#90 - Ajeya Cotra on worldview diversification and how big the future could be

January 21, 2021 00:18 - 2 hours - 82 MB

You wake up in a mysterious box, and hear the booming voice of God: "I just flipped a coin. If it came up heads, I made ten boxes, labeled 1 through 10 - each of which has a human in it. If it came up tails, I made ten billion boxes, labeled 1 through 10 billion - also with one human in each box. To get into heaven, you have to answer this correctly: Which way did the coin land?" You think briefly, and decide you should bet your eternal soul on tails. The fact that you woke up at all seem...

#90 – Ajeya Cotra on worldview diversification and how big the future could be

January 21, 2021 00:18 - 2 hours - 82.3 MB

You wake up in a mysterious box, and hear the booming voice of God: “I just flipped a coin. If it came up heads, I made ten boxes, labeled 1 through 10 — each of which has a human in it. If it came up tails, I made ten billion boxes, labeled 1 through 10 billion — also with one human in each box. To get into heaven, you have to answer this correctly: Which way did the coin land?” You think briefly, and decide you should bet your eternal soul on tails. The fact that you woke up at...

Rob Wiblin on self-improvement and research ethics

January 13, 2021 18:08 - 2 hours - 69.1 MB

This is a crosspost of an episode of the Clearer Thinking Podcast: 022: Self-Improvement and Research Ethics with Rob Wiblin. Rob chats with Spencer Greenberg, who has been an audience favourite in episodes 11 and 39 of the 80,000 Hours Podcast, and has now created this show of his own. Among other things they cover: • Is trying to become a better person a good strategy for self-improvement • Why Rob thinks many people could achieve much more by finding themselves a line manag...

#73 - Phil Trammell on patient philanthropy and waiting to do good [re-release]

January 07, 2021 19:57 - 2 hours - 74.2 MB

Rebroadcast: this episode was originally released in March 2020. To do good, most of us look to use our time and money to affect the world around us today. But perhaps that's all wrong. If you took $1,000 you were going to donate and instead put it in the stock market — where it grew on average 5% a year — in 100 years you'd have $125,000 to give away instead. And in 200 years you'd have $17 million. This astonishing fact has driven today's guest, economics researcher Philip Tr...

#75 - Michelle Hutchinson on what people most often ask 80,000 Hours [re-release]

December 30, 2020 17:00 - 61.7 MB

Rebroadcast: this episode was originally released in April 2020. Since it was founded, 80,000 Hours has done one-on-one calls to supplement our online content and offer more personalised advice. We try to help people get clear on their most plausible paths, the key uncertainties they face in choosing between them, and provide resources, pointers, and introductions to help them in those paths. I (Michelle Hutchinson) joined the team a couple of years ago after working at Oxford's Global Pr...

#75 – Michelle Hutchinson on what people most often ask 80,000 Hours [re-release]

December 30, 2020 17:00 - 2 hours - 62.5 MB

Rebroadcast: this episode was originally released in April 2020. Since it was founded, 80,000 Hours has done one-on-one calls to supplement our online content and offer more personalised advice. We try to help people get clear on their most plausible paths, the key uncertainties they face in choosing between them, and provide resources, pointers, and introductions to help them in those paths. I (Michelle Hutchinson) joined the team a couple of years ago after working at Oxford's ...

#89 - Owen Cotton-Barratt on epistemic systems and layers of defense against potential global catastrophes

December 17, 2020 17:03 - 2 hours - 72.4 MB

From one point of view academia forms one big 'epistemic' system - a process which directs attention, generates ideas, and judges which are good. Traditional print media is another such system, and we can think of society as a whole as a huge epistemic system, made up of these and many other subsystems. How these systems absorb, process, combine and organise information will have a big impact on what humanity as a whole ends up doing with itself - in fact, at a broad level it basically enti...

#89 – Owen Cotton-Barratt on epistemic systems and layers of defense against potential global catastrophes

December 17, 2020 17:03 - 2 hours - 72.8 MB

From one point of view academia forms one big 'epistemic' system — a process which directs attention, generates ideas, and judges which are good. Traditional print media is another such system, and we can think of society as a whole as a huge epistemic system, made up of these and many other subsystems. How these systems absorb, process, combine and organise information will have a big impact on what humanity as a whole ends up doing with itself — in fact, at a broad level it basic...

#88 - Tristan Harris on the need to change the incentives of social media companies

December 03, 2020 20:18 - 2 hours - 71.3 MB

In its first 28 days on Netflix, the documentary The Social Dilemma - about the possible harms being caused by social media and other technology products - was seen by 38 million households in about 190 countries and in 30 languages. Over the last ten years, the idea that Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are degrading political discourse and grabbing and monetizing our attention in an alarming way has gone mainstream to such an extent that it's hard to remember how recently it was a fringe vie...

#88 – Tristan Harris on the need to change the incentives of social media companies

December 03, 2020 20:18 - 2 hours - 71.5 MB

In its first 28 days on Netflix, the documentary The Social Dilemma — about the possible harms being caused by social media and other technology products — was seen by 38 million households in about 190 countries and in 30 languages. Over the last ten years, the idea that Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are degrading political discourse and grabbing and monetizing our attention in an alarming way has gone mainstream to such an extent that it's hard to remember how recently it was a f...

Benjamin Todd on what the effective altruism community most needs (80k team chat #4)

November 12, 2020 22:26 - 1 hour - 44.4 MB

In the last '80k team chat' with Ben Todd and Arden Koehler, we discussed what effective altruism is and isn't, and how to argue for it. In this episode we turn now to what the effective altruism community most needs. • Links to learn more, summary and full transcript • The 2020 Effective Altruism Survey just opened. If you're involved with the effective altruism community, or sympathetic to its ideas, it's would be wonderful if you could fill it out: https://www.surveymonkey.co.u...

#87 - Russ Roberts on whether it's more effective to help strangers, or people you know

November 03, 2020 19:43 - 1 hour - 50.2 MB

If you want to make the world a better place, would it be better to help your niece with her SATs, or try to join the State Department to lower the risk that the US and China go to war? People involved in 80,000 Hours or the effective altruism community would be comfortable recommending the latter. This week's guest - Russ Roberts, host of the long-running podcast EconTalk, and author of a forthcoming book on decision-making under uncertainty and the limited ability of data to help - worries...

#87 – Russ Roberts on whether it's more effective to help strangers, or people you know

November 03, 2020 19:43 - 1 hour - 50.5 MB

If you want to make the world a better place, would it be better to help your niece with her SATs, or try to join the State Department to lower the risk that the US and China go to war? People involved in 80,000 Hours or the effective altruism community would be comfortable recommending the latter. This week's guest — Russ Roberts, host of the long-running podcast EconTalk, and author of a forthcoming book on decision-making under uncertainty and the limited ability of data to help ...

How much does a vote matter? (Article)

October 29, 2020 13:47 - 31 minutes - 14.4 MB

Today’s release is the latest in our series of audio versions of our articles. In this one — How much does a vote matter? — I investigate the two key things that determine the impact of your vote: • The chances of your vote changing an election’s outcome • How much better some candidates are for the world as a whole, compared to others I then discuss what I think are the best arguments against voting in important elections: • If an election is competitive, that means other peo...

#86 - Hilary Greaves on Pascal's mugging, strong longtermism, and whether existing can be good for us

October 21, 2020 21:30 - 2 hours - 66.3 MB

Had World War 1 never happened, you might never have existed. It's very unlikely that the exact chain of events that led to your conception would have happened otherwise - so perhaps you wouldn't have been born. Would that mean that it's better for you that World War 1 happened (regardless of whether it was better for the world overall)? On the one hand, if you're living a pretty good life, you might think the answer is yes - you get to live rather than not. On the other hand, it sounds s...

#86 – Hilary Greaves on Pascal's mugging, strong longtermism, and whether existing can be good for us

October 21, 2020 21:30 - 2 hours - 66.5 MB

Had World War 1 never happened, you might never have existed. It’s very unlikely that the exact chain of events that led to your conception would have happened otherwise — so perhaps you wouldn't have been born. Would that mean that it's better for you that World War 1 happened (regardless of whether it was better for the world overall)? On the one hand, if you're living a pretty good life, you might think the answer is yes – you get to live rather than not. On the other hand, it...

Benjamin Todd on the core of effective altruism and how to argue for it (80k team chat #3)

September 22, 2020 22:47 - 1 hour - 38.7 MB

Today’s episode is the latest conversation between Arden Koehler, and our CEO, Ben Todd. Ben’s been thinking a lot about effective altruism recently, including what it really is, how it's framed, and how people misunderstand it. We recently released an article on misconceptions about effective altruism – based on Will MacAskill’s recent paper The Definition of Effective Altruism – and this episode can act as a companion piece. Links to learn more, summary and full transcript. Ard...

Ideas for high impact careers beyond our priority paths (Article)

September 07, 2020 12:03 - 27 minutes - 13.4 MB

Today’s release is the latest in our series of audio versions of our articles. In this one, we go through some more career options beyond our priority paths that seem promising to us for positively influencing the long-term future. Some of these are likely to be written up as priority paths in the future, or wrapped into existing ones, but we haven’t written full profiles for them yet—for example policy careers outside AI and biosecurity policy that seem promising from a longtermi...

Benjamin Todd on varieties of longtermism and things 80,000 Hours might be getting wrong (80k team chat #2)

September 01, 2020 15:56 - 57 minutes - 26.6 MB

Today’s bonus episode is a conversation between Arden Koehler, and our CEO, Ben Todd. Ben’s been doing a bunch of research recently, and we thought it’d be interesting to hear about how he’s currently thinking about a couple of different topics – including different types of longtermism, and things 80,000 Hours might be getting wrong. Links to learn more, summary and full transcript. This is very off-the-cut compared to our regular episodes, and just 54 minutes long. In the first...

Ben Todd on varieties of longtermism and things 80,000 Hours might be getting wrong (80k team chat)

September 01, 2020 15:56 - 26.5 MB

Today’s bonus episode is a conversation between Arden Koehler, and our CEO, Ben Todd. Ben’s been doing a bunch of research recently, and we thought it’d be interesting to hear about how he’s currently thinking about a couple of different topics – including different types of longtermism, and things 80,000 Hours might be getting wrong. Links to learn more, summary and full transcript. This is very off-the-cut compared to our regular episodes, and just 54 minutes long. In the first half, Ar...

Global issues beyond 80,000 Hours' current priorities (Article)

August 28, 2020 16:24 - 32 minutes - 15.1 MB

Today's release is the latest in our series of audio versions of our articles. In this one, we go through 30 global issues beyond the ones we usually prioritize most highly in our work, and that you might consider focusing your career on tackling. Although we spend the majority of our time at 80,000 Hours on our highest priority problem areas, and we recommend working on them to many of our readers, these are just the most promising issues among those we've spent time investigating. There a...

Global issues beyond 80,000 Hours? current priorities (Article)

August 28, 2020 16:24 - 15.1 MB

Today?s release is the latest in our series of audio versions of our articles. In this one, we go through 30 global issues beyond the ones we usually prioritize most highly in our work, and that you might consider focusing your career on tackling. Although we spend the majority of our time at 80,000 Hours on our highest priority problem areas, and we recommend working on them to many of our readers, these are just the most promising issues among those we?ve spent time investigating. There a...

Global issues beyond 80,000 Hours’ current priorities (Article)

August 28, 2020 16:24 - 32 minutes - 15.5 MB

Today’s release is the latest in our series of audio versions of our articles. In this one, we go through 30 global issues beyond the ones we usually prioritize most highly in our work, and that you might consider focusing your career on tackling. Although we spend the majority of our time at 80,000 Hours on our highest priority problem areas, and we recommend working on them to many of our readers, these are just the most promising issues among those we’ve spent time investigating...

#85 - Mark Lynas on climate change, societal collapse & nuclear energy

August 20, 2020 19:50 - 2 hours - 59.2 MB

A golf-ball sized lump of uranium can deliver more than enough power to cover all of your lifetime energy use. To get the same energy from coal, you’d need 3,200 tonnes of black rock — a mass equivalent to 800 adult elephants, which would produce more than 11,000 tonnes of CO2. That’s about 11,000 tonnes more than the uranium. Many people aren’t comfortable with the danger posed by nuclear power. But given the climatic stakes, it’s worth asking: Just how much more dangerous is it co...

#84 - Shruti Rajagopalan on what India did to stop COVID-19 and how well it worked

August 13, 2020 21:22 - 2 hours - 82.2 MB

When COVID-19 struck the US, everyone was told that hand sanitizer needed to be saved for healthcare professionals, so they should just wash their hands instead. But in India, many homes lack reliable piped water, so they had to do the opposite: distribute hand sanitizer as widely as possible. American advocates for banning single-use plastic straws might be outraged at the widespread adoption of single-use hand sanitizer sachets in India. But the US and India are very different pla...

#83 - Jennifer Doleac on preventing crime without police and prisons

July 31, 2020 20:16 - 2 hours - 66 MB

The killing of George Floyd has prompted a great deal of debate over whether the US should reduce the size of its police departments. The research literature suggests that the presence of police officers does reduce crime, though they're expensive and as is increasingly recognised, impose substantial harms on the populations they are meant to be protecting, especially communities of colour.  So maybe we ought to shift our focus to effective but unconventional approaches to crime pr...

#83 - Prof Jennifer Doleac on preventing crime without police and prisons

July 31, 2020 20:16 - 2 hours - 65.5 MB

The killing of George Floyd has prompted a great deal of debate over whether the US should reduce the size of its police departments. The research literature suggests that the presence of police officers does reduce crime, though they're expensive and as is increasingly recognised, impose substantial harms on the populations they are meant to be protecting, especially communities of colour. So maybe we ought to shift our focus to effective but unconventional approaches to crime prevention, a...

#82 - James Forman Jr on reducing the cruelty of the US criminal legal system

July 27, 2020 22:07 - 1 hour - 41.3 MB

No democracy has ever incarcerated as many people as the United States. To get its incarceration rate down to the global average, the US would have to release 3 in 4 people in its prisons today.  The effects on Black Americans have been especially severe — Black people make up 12% of the US population but 33% of its prison population. In the early 2000's when incarceration reached its peak, the US government estimated that 32% of Black boys would go to prison at some point in thei...

#82 - Prof James Forman Jr on reducing the cruelty of the US criminal legal system

July 27, 2020 22:07 - 1 hour - 40.3 MB

No democracy has ever incarcerated as many people as the United States. To get its incarceration rate down to the global average, the US would have to release 3 in 4 people in its prisons today. The effects on Black Americans have been especially severe — Black people make up 12% of the US population but 33% of its prison population. In the early 2000's when incarceration reached its peak, the US government estimated that 32% of Black boys would go to prison at some point in their lives, 5....

#81 - Ben Garfinkel on scrutinising classic AI risk arguments

July 09, 2020 17:42 - 2 hours - 72.9 MB

80,000 Hours, along with many other members of the effective altruism movement, has argued that helping to positively shape the development of artificial intelligence may be one of the best ways to have a lasting, positive impact on the long-term future. Millions of dollars in philanthropic spending, as well as lots of career changes, have been motivated by these arguments. Today’s guest, Ben Garfinkel, Research Fellow at Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, supports the continue...

Advice on how to read our advice (Article)

June 29, 2020 19:38 - 15 minutes - 7.21 MB

This is the fourth release in our new series of audio articles. If you want to read the original article or check out the links within it, you can find them here. "We’ve found that readers sometimes interpret or apply our advice in ways we didn’t anticipate and wouldn’t exactly recommend. That’s hard to avoid when you’re writing for a range of people with different personalities and initial views. To help get on the same page, here’s some advice about our advice, for those about...

#80 - Professor Stuart Russell on why our approach to AI is broken and how to fix it

June 22, 2020 23:17 - 2 hours - 61 MB

Stuart Russell, Professor at UC Berkeley and co-author of the most popular AI textbook, thinks the way we approach machine learning today is fundamentally flawed. In his new book, Human Compatible, he outlines the 'standard model' of AI development, in which intelligence is measured as the ability to achieve some definite, completely-known objective that we've stated explicitly. This is so obvious it almost doesn't even seem like a design choice, but it is. Unfortunately there's a big probl...

#80 - Stuart Russell on why our approach to AI is broken and how to fix it

June 22, 2020 23:17 - 2 hours - 61.4 MB

Stuart Russell, Professor at UC Berkeley and co-author of the most popular AI textbook, thinks the way we approach machine learning today is fundamentally flawed. In his new book, Human Compatible, he outlines the 'standard model' of AI development, in which intelligence is measured as the ability to achieve some definite, completely-known objective that we've stated explicitly. This is so obvious it almost doesn't even seem like a design choice, but it is. Unfortunately there's...

What anonymous contributors think about important life and career questions (Article)

June 05, 2020 17:40 - 37 minutes - 34.2 MB

Today we’re launching the final entry of our ‘anonymous answers' series on the website. It features answers to 23 different questions including “How have you seen talented people fail in their work?” and “What’s one way to be successful you don’t think people talk about enough?”, from anonymous people whose work we admire. We thought a lot of the responses were really interesting; some were provocative, others just surprising. And as intended, they span a very wide range of opinion...

#79 - A.J. Jacobs on radical honesty, following the whole Bible, and reframing global problems as puzzles

June 01, 2020 22:08 - 2 hours - 146 MB

Today’s guest, New York Times bestselling author A.J. Jacobs, always hated Judge Judy. But after he found out that she was his seventh cousin, he thought, "You know what, she's not so bad". Hijacking this bias towards family and trying to broaden it to everyone led to his three-year adventure to help build the biggest family tree in history. He’s also spent months saying whatever was on his mind, tried to become the healthiest person in the world, read 33,000 pages of facts, spent ...

#78 - Danny Hernandez on forecasting and the drivers of AI progress

May 22, 2020 16:17 - 2 hours - 121 MB

Companies use about 300,000 times more computation training the best AI systems today than they did in 2012 and algorithmic innovations have also made them 25 times more efficient at the same tasks. These are the headline results of two recent papers — AI and Compute and AI and Efficiency — from the Foresight Team at OpenAI. In today's episode I spoke with one of the authors, Danny Hernandez, who joined OpenAI after helping develop better forecasting methods at Twitch and Open Phila...

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David Chalmers
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Peter Singer
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