80,000 Hours Podcast

Updated: 24 Jun 2025 • 292 episodes
80000hours.org/podcast

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. Hosted by Rob Wiblin and Luisa Rodriguez.

Show episodes

The era of making AI smarter just by making it bigger is ending. But that doesn’t mean progress is slowing down — far from it. AI models continue to get much more powerful, just using very different methods, and those underlying technical changes force a big rethink of what coming years will look like. Toby Ord — Oxfor

168 min
00:00
02:48:22
No file found

For decades, US allies have slept soundly under the protection of America’s overwhelming military might. Donald Trump — with his threats to ditch NATO, seize Greenland, and abandon Taiwan — seems hell-bent on shattering that comfort. But according to Hugh White — one of the world's leading strategic thinkers, emeritus

168 min
00:00
02:48:42
No file found

AI models today have a 50% chance of successfully completing a task that would take an expert human one hour. Seven months ago, that number was roughly 30 minutes — and seven months before that, 15 minutes. (See graph.) These are substantial, multi-step tasks requiring sustained focus: building web applications, conduc

227 min
00:00
03:47:09
No file found

What if there’s something it’s like to be a shrimp — or a chatbot? For centuries, humans have debated the nature of consciousness, often placing ourselves at the very top. But what about the minds of others — both the animals we share this planet with and the artificial intelligences we’re creating? We’ve pulled togeth

214 min
00:00
03:34:40
No file found

OpenAI’s recent announcement that its nonprofit would “retain control” of its for-profit business sounds reassuring. But this seemingly major concession, celebrated by so many, is in itself largely meaningless. Litigator Tyler Whitmer is a coauthor of a newly published letter that describes this attempted sleight of ha

72 min
00:00
01:12:04
No file found

More and more people have been saying that we might have AGI (artificial general intelligence) before 2030. Is that really plausible?  This article by Benjamin Todd looks into the cases for and against, and summarises the key things you need to know to understand the debate. You can see all the images and many footnote

60 min
00:00
01:00:06
No file found