80k After Hours

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

This is a selection of highlights from episode #199 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 Calvin on California’s AI bill SB 1047 and its potential to shape US AI policy

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 can't count on AI companies to self-regulate (00:00:21)
• SB 1047's impact on open source models (00:04:24)
• Why it's not "too early" for AI policies (00:07:54)
• Why working on state-level policy could have an outsized impact (00:11:47)

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

This is a selection of highlights from episode #198 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:

Meghan Barrett on challenging our assumptions about insects

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

Highlights:

• Luisa’s intro (00:00:00)
• Size diversity (00:00:16)
• Offspring, parental investment, and lifespan (00:03:18)
• Headless cockroaches (00:06:13)
• Is self-protective behaviour a reflex? (00:08:50)
• If insects feel pain, is it mild or severe? (00:11:54)
• Evolutionary perspective on insect sentience (00:16:53)
• How likely is insect sentience? (00:20:25)

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

This is a selection of highlights from episode #197 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:

Nick Joseph on whether Anthropic’s AI safety policy is up to the task

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

Highlights:

• Rob's intro (00:00:00)
• What Anthropic's responsible scaling policy commits the company to doing (00:00:17)
• Why Nick is a big fan of the RSP approach (00:02:13)
• Are RSPs still valuable if the people using them aren't bought in? (00:05:07)
• Nick's biggest reservations about the RSP approach (00:08:01)
• Should Anthropic's RSP have wider safety buffers? (00:11:17)
• Alternatives to RSPs (00:14:57)
• Should concerned people be willing to take capabilities roles? (00:19:22)

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

This is a selection of highlights from episode #196 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:

Jonathan Birch on the edge cases of sentience and why they matter

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

Chapters:

• Luisa’s intro (00:00:00)
• The history of neonatal surgery without anaesthetic (00:00:23)
• Overconfidence around disorders of consciousness (00:03:17)
• Separating abortion from the issue of foetal sentience (00:07:26)
• The cases for and against neural organoids (00:11:30)
• Artificial sentience arising from whole brain emulations of roundworms and fruit flies (00:15:45)
• Using citizens' assemblies to do policymaking (00:22:00)

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

This is a selection of highlights from episode #195 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:

Sella Nevo on who's trying to steal frontier AI models, and what they could do with them

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

Chapters:

• Luisa’s intro (00:00:00)
• Why protect model weights? (00:00:23)
• SolarWinds hack (00:03:51)
• Zero-days (00:08:16)
• Side-channel attacks (00:11:45)
• USB cables (00:15:11)

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

This is a selection of highlights from episode #194 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:

Vitalik Buterin on defensive acceleration and how to regulate AI when you fear government

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

Chapters:

• Rob’s intro (00:00:00)
• Vitalik's "d/acc" alternative (00:00:14)
• Biodefence (00:05:31)
• How much do people actually disagree? (00:09:49)
• Distrust of authority is a big deal (00:15:09)
• Info defence and X's Community Notes (00:19:35)
• Quadratic voting and funding (00:26:22)
• Vitalik's philosophy of half-assing everything (00:30:32)

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

This is a selection of highlights from episode #193 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:

Sihao Huang on the risk that US–China AI competition leads to war

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

Chapters:

• Luisa’s intro (00:00:00)
• How advanced is Chinese AI? (00:00:25)
• Is China catching up to the US and UK? (00:05:14)
• Could China be a source of catastrophic AI risk? (00:07:50)
• AI enabling human rights abuses and undermining democracy (00:13:53)
• China's attempts at indigenising its semiconductor supply chain (00:18:14)
• How the US and UK might coordinate with China (00:20:32)

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

This is a selection of highlights from episode #192 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:

Annie Jacobsen on what would happen if North Korea launched a nuclear weapon at the US

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

Chapters:

• Luisa’s intro (00:00:00)
• The minutes after an incoming nuclear attack is detected (00:00:22)
• Deciding whether to retaliate (00:04:24)
• Russian misperception of US counterattack (00:07:37)
• The nuclear launch plans that would kill millions in neighbouring countries (00:11:38)
• The war games that suggest escalation is inevitable (00:15:31)
• A super-electromagnetic pulse (00:19:12)

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

You can check out the video version of this episode on YouTube at https://youtu.be/AUuEaYltONg

Matt, Bella, and Cody sit down with Maria Gutierrez Rojas to discuss the 80k’s aesthetics, religion (again), bad billionaires, and why it’s hard to be an org that both gives advice and has opinions.