80k After Hours

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 [email protected].

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

In this episode of 80k After Hours — Rob continues to interview his 80,000 Hours colleagues Michelle Hutchinson and Habiba Islam about the 1-1 team.

Links to learn more, highlights and full transcript.

This is the second of a two-part interview. You can find the first part on the original 80,000 Hours Podcast feed.

In this part, they cover:

• Whether just encouraging someone young to aspire to more than they currently are is one of the most impactful ways to spend half an hour
• How much impact the one-on-one team has, the biggest challenges they face as a group, and different paths they could have gone down
• Whether giving general advice is a doomed enterprise
• And more

Who this episode is for:

• Young people interested in 80,000 Hours
• People curious about the inner-workings of the 1-1 team
• People who left the first part wanting more

Who this episode isn’t for:

• People who left the first part wanting less
• People who like up-to-date movie recommendations

Want to get free one-on-one advice from our team? We're here to help.

We’ve helped thousands of people formulate their plans and put them in touch with mentors.

We've expanded our ability to deliver one-on-one meetings so are keen to help more people than ever before. If you're a regular listener to the show we're especially likely to want to speak with you.

Learn about and apply for advising.

Get this episode by subscribing to our more experimental podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type 80k After Hours into your podcasting app.

Producer: Keiran Harris
Audio mastering: Ben Cordell
Transcriptions: Katy Moore

In this episode of 80k After Hours, Luisa Rodriguez and Alex Lawsen discuss common mistakes people make when trying to do good with their careers, and advice on how to avoid them.

Links to learn more, highlights and full transcript.

They cover:

• Taking 80,000 Hours’ rankings too seriously
• Not trying hard enough to fail
• Feeling like you need to optimise for having the most impact *now*
• Feeling like you need to work directly on AI immediately
• Not taking a role because you think you’ll be replaceable
• Constantly considering other career options
• Overthinking or over-optimising career choices
• Being unwilling to think things through for yourself
• Ignoring conventional career wisdom
• Doing community work even if you’re not suited to it

Who this episode is for:

• People who want to pursue a high-impact career
• People wondering how much AI progress should change their plans
• People who take 80,000 Hours’ career advice seriously

Who this episode isn’t for:

• People not taking 80k's career advice seriously enough
• People who've never made any career mistakes
• People who don't want to hear Alex say "I said a bunch of stuff, maybe some of it's true" every time he's on the podcast

Get this episode by subscribing to our more experimental podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type 80k After Hours into your podcasting app.

Producer and editor: Keiran Harris
Audio Engineering Lead: Ben Cordell
Technical editing: Milo McGuire and Dominic Armstrong
Additional content editing: Luisa Rodriguez and Katy Moore
Transcriptions: Katy Moore

In this episode of 80k After Hours, Habiba Islam reads Benjamin Todd's career review on founding new projects tackling top problems.

Here’s the original piece if you’d like to learn more.

You might also want to check out these relevant pieces:

• The growth of effective altruism: what does it mean for our priorities and level of ambition? — Benjamin Todd
• Notes on good judgement and how to develop it — Benjamin Todd
• What we learned from a year incubating longtermist entrepreneurship — Rebecca Kagan, Jade Leung, Ben Clifford

Get this episode by subscribing to our more experimental podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type 80k After Hours into your podcasting app.

Producer: Keiran Harris
Audio mastering: Beppe Rådvik and Ben Cordell

This is a selection of highlights from episode #200 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:

Ezra Karger on what superforecasters and experts think about existential risks

And if you're finding these highlights episodes valuable, please let us know by emailing [email protected].

Highlights:

• Luisa’s intro (00:00:00)
• Why we need forecasts about existential risks (00:00:26)
• Headline estimates of existential and catastrophic risks (00:02:43)
• What explains disagreements about AI risks? (00:06:18)
• Learning more doesn't resolve disagreements about AI risks (00:08:59)
• A lot of disagreement about AI risks is about when AI will pose risks (00:11:31)
• Cruxes about AI risks (00:15:17)
• Is forecasting actually useful in the real world? (00:18:24)

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