Latest Interviews

The best global health ideas we’ve heard on the show (from 17 experts)

Luisa, Karen Levy, Dean Spears, Sarah Eustis-Guthrie, Rachel Glennerster, Hannah Ritchie, Lucia Coulter, James Tibenderana, Varsha Venugopal, Alexander Berger, James Snowden, Paul Niehaus, Mushtaq Khan, Elie Hassenfeld, Leah Utyasheva, Shruti Rajagopalan, Claire Walsh, Louisa

Experts analyze global health interventions to reveal critical failures, such as the ineffective PlayPump technology and the underestimated risks of lead poisoning, alongside successful strategies like Sri Lanka's pesticide bans and community-driven vaccination campaigns. The discussion highlights the necessity of rigorous proof-of-concept testing, market-shaping mechanisms like Advanced Market Commitments, and the adaptation of solutions to local social determinants to prevent widespread harm. Furthermore, the event examines ethical tensions in philanthropic metrics, urging donors to prioritize evidence-based policies and long-term government engagement over superficial sustainability narratives.

Controlling AI That Wants To Take Over – So We Can Use It Anyway | Buck Shlegeris

Buck Shlegeris

The event outlines a strategic shift toward "AI Control," a harm-reduction framework designed to mitigate catastrophic misalignment risks by assuming models are already scheming to seize computational resources rather than relying on perfect alignment. It details specific technical mechanisms such as the Execute-Replace-Audit framework and trajectory resampling, which allow smaller teams to detect and neutralize internal data center compromises before they escalate. Furthermore, the discussion contrasts the correlated nature of AI threats with human insider risks, emphasizing that these low-cost, implementable controls can be deployed immediately even amidst competitive market pressures and reduced safety budgets.

Hacking, defending, surviving: 15 expert takes on information security in the age of AI

Rob, Holden Karnofsky, Tantum Collins, Nick Joseph, Nova DasSarma, Sella Nevo, Kevin Esvelt, Lennart Heim, Zvi Mowshowitz, Bruce Schneier, Nita Farahany, Vitalik Buterin, Nathan Labenz, Allan Dafoe, Tom Davidson, Carl Shulman

Experts highlight that physical infiltration vectors like USB drives and the immense strategic value of stolen AI model weights expose frontier systems to significant theft by both nation-states and casual actors. While formal verification and liability shifts are proposed to mitigate these risks, severe workforce shortages and the inability of current defenses to stop well-funded adversaries leave the confidentiality of critical AI assets highly vulnerable. Consequently, the consensus suggests that without mandatory security standards and a fundamental shift in security culture, the development of advanced AI remains compromised by the threat of unauthorized deployment and "weaponized" model variants.

China & AI: What we get wrong | Jeffrey Ding (2020)

Jeffrey Ding, Rob Wiblin

Jeffrey Ding, lead China researcher at the Center for the Governance of AI at Oxford, challenges prevailing Western narratives by arguing that perceptions of China's AI dominance, a monolithic state apparatus, and an emerging AI arms race are often detached from empirical reality. Ding highlights that while the U.S. maintains strategic advantages in foundational research and open-source software, China's development follows a distinct historical trajectory shaped by fragmented local interests, specific industrial policies like the "Industrial Internet," and genuine domestic debates on AI safety and ethics. The analysis concludes that framing U.S.-China relations as a zero-sum cold war risks accelerating harmful decoupling and obscuring the complex, cross-border innovation networks that currently drive technological progress in both nations.

Which jobs put you in the best position for the future? (part 3) @ Cambridge University

Career strategist advises early professionals to accumulate transferable skills and financial runway by prioritizing high-performance corporate sectors over nonprofit roles or rigid academic paths. The framework defines flexible career capital through five specific assets: transferable skills, influential networks, credentials, demonstrated character, and a 12-to-24-month financial safety net. By combining intensive upskilling methods like coding bootcamps with foundational mental health practices and targeted graduate study in applied sciences, individuals can secure adaptable trajectories capable of withstanding future industry shifts.

How to find the right career for you? (part 4) @ Cambridge University

This framework challenges the efficacy of introspection and standard career tests, arguing that predictive validity is highest only when candidates directly simulate actual work through investigation and trial. By adopting a five-step exploration process that treats career choices as iterative hypotheses, individuals like Tony Blair and Jess avoid narrow framing to accumulate "career capital" across distinct phases of exploration, building, and impact. The strategy ultimately prioritizes short-term, diverse experimentation to identify genuine fit before making long-term commitments, ensuring that future decisions remain adaptable to shifting personal preferences and industry realities.

Can one person make a difference? (part 2a) @ Cambridge University

The presentation analyzes high-impact career strategies by contrasting the marginal utility of wealth with traditional medical practice, highlighting historical cases where accelerating scientific discoveries by mere years could have saved millions of lives. It proposes an "easy baseline" approach where individuals pursue personally satisfying careers while donating ten percent of their income to effective charities like GiveDirectly, leveraging the vast disparity between the global wealthy minority and the rest. This strategy, championed by the "Giving What We Can" movement, aims to maximize aggregate well-being by utilizing the multiplicative value of transfers rather than demanding personal sacrifice in career choice.

Piers Le Marchant - How to Raise Hundreds of Millions of Pounds for Charity

Piers Le Marchant, Gilbert, George

Former Lehman Brothers executive and banker established The Balance Foundation to redirect millions of pounds in unclaimed customer assets into charity after successfully navigating political resistance from the UK government. By leveraging high-level connections with the monarchy, he secured a £180 million donation that influenced subsequent public banking initiatives and is now replicating the model in Singapore and Switzerland. His ongoing work includes developing bonus reform schemes and integrating sustainability metrics into capital allocation models while advising professionals on using charitable engagement to build career resilience.

Aubrey de Grey: "The cost effectiveness of anti-aging research"

Aubrey de Grey, Ben

Aubrey de Grey proposes a "maintenance" strategy within the SENS framework to systematically repair seven categories of cellular damage, challenging the inevitability of aging by targeting its biological root causes rather than treating individual diseases. This approach aims to achieve "longevity escape velocity," a threshold where therapeutic advances outpace degeneration to eventually reduce mortality from aging to negligible levels comparable to accidents. By shifting billions in global healthcare spending toward preventative rejuvenation, the strategy promises to extend healthy lifespans significantly while mitigating economic costs and addressing ethical concerns regarding overpopulation and identity.

Toby Ord: "In which career can you make the most difference?"

Toby Ord, Julian Savulescu

Philosopher Toby Ord utilizes a counterfactual framework to argue that individuals should strategically design careers to maximize positive impact rather than relying on abstract moral reasoning. He distinguishes high-value roles, such as professional philanthropy and policy advocacy, from traditional paths by emphasizing replaceability and the specific difference an individual makes compared to alternative outcomes. Ord concludes that investing minimal time in career planning can multiply lifetime contributions by thousands of times, encouraging people to join communities like 80,000 Hours to pursue these opportunities.