Latest Interviews
Showing 1–4 of 4 transcripts.
Clear all filters- 80,000 Hours1h 38m
2025 Highlight-o-thon: Oops! All Bests
Kyle Fish, Ian Dunt, Sam Bowman, Buck Shlegeris, Luisa, Rob, Helen Toner, Hugh White, Paul Scharre, Beth Barnes, Tyler Whitmer, Toby Ord, Andrew Snyder-Beattie, Eileen Yam, Will MacAskill, Neel Nanda, Tom Davidson, Marius Hobbhahn, Holden Karnofsky, Allan Dafoe, Ryan Greenblatt, Daniel Kokotajlo, Dean Ball
This forum convened experts to debate the accelerating timeline of AGI by 2029 while critiquing US geopolitical strategies for abandoning global primacy in favor of a multipolar order. Participants examined critical risks including AI scheming, biological defense asymmetries, and the erosion of human context in warfare, contrasting them with corporate reforms at OpenAI and the rising costs of AI inference. The discourse further highlighted the widening perception gap between AI developers and the public, the potential of mechanistic interpretability as an "AI biology," and the structural necessity of aligning urban planning with community quality of life rather than NIMBYism.
- 80,000 Hours2h 50m
The best of The 80,000 Hours Podcast in 2024
Luisa, Rob, Randy Nesse, Hugo Mercier, Meghan Barrett, Sébastien Moro, Sella Nevo, Zvi Mowshowitz, Zach Weinersmith, Rachel Glennerster, Emily Oster, Carl Shulman, Nathan Labenz, Nathan Calvin, Rose Chan Loui, Nick Joseph, Sihao Huang, Ezra Karger, Matt Clancy, Vitalik Buterin, Annie Jacobsen, Nate Silver, Kevin Esvelt, Lewis Bollard, Bob Fischer, Elizabeth Cox, Anil Seth, Eric Schwitzgebel, Jonathan Birch, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Laura Deming, Venki Ramakrishnan, Ken Goldberg, Sarah Eustis-Guthrie, Dean Spears, Cameron Meyer Shorb, Spencer Greenberg
Randy Nessie and Hugo Mercier establish that morality and skepticism are evolutionary adaptations driven by social selection and the need for honest signaling. In parallel, experts like Megan Barrett and Lewis Bollard advocate for expanding ethical consideration to insect sentience and the eradication of wild animal suffering, while AI safety researchers demonstrate emerging risks such as sleeper agents and instrumental convergence. The discussion further critiques the economic viability of space resources and analyzes social dynamics ranging from the gender wage gap to the limitations of cryonics, concluding with philosophical arguments about consciousness and strategies for effective altruism.
- 80,000 Hours2h 49m
Why evolution left us so vulnerable to depression and anxiety | Randy Nesse
Dr. Peter Whybrow argues that psychiatric symptoms like anxiety and depression are maladaptive evolutionary mechanisms rather than simple chemical defects, reframing them as natural responses to modern environmental mismatches. By applying principles of natural selection, this approach suggests treatments should target the underlying motivational structures and "low-threshold" defense systems instead of merely suppressing symptoms with medication. This paradigm shift challenges the current medical model by emphasizing that genes promoting early-life survival can inadvertently cause disorders later, urging clinicians to address the complex interplay between biology, culture, and individual life narratives.
- 80,000 Hours2h 37m
Why human gullibility and misinformation are overrated | Hugo Mercier
Psychologist Hugo Mercier argues that human skepticism acts as a robust evolutionary defense against misinformation, rendering fears about AI-generated falsehoods largely exaggerated due to inherent bottlenecks in attention and social transmission. He contends that trust relies on a source's competence and honest incentives, explaining why conspiracy theories often fail while official endorsements remain dangerous, and suggesting that reputation-based curation and automated fact-checking offer more effective mitigation strategies than broad panic. Despite the World Economic Forum ranking misinformation as a top global risk, Mercier maintains that systematic errors like regression to the mean or teleological intuition drive gullibility more than sophisticated digital manipulation.