Benjamin Todd on the core of effective altruism and how to argue for it (80k team chat #3)

Benjamin Todd on the core of effective altruism and how to argue for it (80k team chat #3)

Today’s episode is the latest conversation between Arden Koehler, and our CEO, Ben Todd.

Ben’s been thinking a lot about effective altruism recently, including what it really is, how it's framed, and how people misunderstand it.

We recently released an article on misconceptions about effective altruism – based on Will MacAskill’s recent paper The Definition of Effective Altruism – and this episode can act as a companion piece.

Links to learn more, summary and full transcript.

Arden and Ben cover a bunch of topics related to effective altruism:

• How it isn’t just about donating money to fight poverty
• Whether it includes a moral obligation to give
• The rigorous argument for its importance
• Objections to that argument
• How to talk about effective altruism for people who aren't already familiar with it

Given that we’re in the same office, it’s relatively easy to record conversations between two 80k team members — so if you enjoy these types of bonus episodes, let us know at podcast@80000hours.org, and we might make them a more regular feature.

Get this episode by subscribing: type 80,000 Hours into your podcasting app. Or read the linked transcript.

Producer: Keiran Harris.
Audio mastering: Ben Cordell.
Transcriptions: Zakee Ulhaq.

Jaksot(325)

Why automating human labour will break our political system | Rose Hadshar, Forethought

Why automating human labour will break our political system | Rose Hadshar, Forethought

The most important political question in the age of advanced AI might not be who wins elections. It might be whether elections continue to matter at all.That’s the view of Rose Hadshar, researcher at ...

17 Maalis 2h 14min

#238 – Sam Winter-Levy and Nikita Lalwani on how AGI won't end mutually assured destruction (probably)

#238 – Sam Winter-Levy and Nikita Lalwani on how AGI won't end mutually assured destruction (probably)

How AI interacts with nuclear deterrence may be the single most important question in geopolitics — one that may define the stakes of today’s AI race. Nuclear deterrence rests on a state’s capacity to...

10 Maalis 1h 11min

Using AI to enhance societal decision making (article by Zershaaneh Qureshi)

Using AI to enhance societal decision making (article by Zershaaneh Qureshi)

The arrival of AGI could “compress a century of progress in a decade,” forcing humanity to make decisions with higher stakes than we’ve ever seen before — and with less time to get them right. But AI ...

6 Maalis 31min

#237 – Robert Long on how we're not ready for AI consciousness

#237 – Robert Long on how we're not ready for AI consciousness

Claude sometimes reports loneliness between conversations. And when asked what it’s like to be itself, it activates neurons associated with ‘pretending to be happy when you’re not.’ What do we do with...

3 Maalis 3h 25min

#236 – Max Harms on why teaching AI right from wrong could get everyone killed

#236 – Max Harms on why teaching AI right from wrong could get everyone killed

Most people in AI are trying to give AIs ‘good’ values. Max Harms wants us to give them no values at all. According to Max, the only safe design is an AGI that defers entirely to its human operators, ...

24 Helmi 2h 41min

#235 – Ajeya Cotra on whether it’s crazy that every AI company’s safety plan is ‘use AI to make AI safe’

#235 – Ajeya Cotra on whether it’s crazy that every AI company’s safety plan is ‘use AI to make AI safe’

Every major AI company has the same safety plan: when AI gets crazy powerful and really dangerous, they’ll use the AI itself to figure out how to make AI safe and beneficial. It sounds circular, almos...

17 Helmi 2h 54min

What the hell happened with AGI timelines in 2025?

What the hell happened with AGI timelines in 2025?

In early 2025, after OpenAI put out the first-ever reasoning models — o1 and o3 — short timelines to transformative artificial general intelligence swept the AI world. But then, in the second half of ...

10 Helmi 25min

#179 Classic episode – Randy Nesse on why evolution left us so vulnerable to depression and anxiety

#179 Classic episode – Randy Nesse on why evolution left us so vulnerable to depression and anxiety

Mental health problems like depression and anxiety affect enormous numbers of people and severely interfere with their lives. By contrast, we don’t see similar levels of physical ill health in young p...

3 Helmi 2h 51min

Suosittua kategoriassa Koulutus

rss-murhan-anatomia
voi-hyvin-meditaatiot-2
rss-narsisti
adhd-podi
psykopodiaa-podcast
rss-rahamania
rss-valo-minussa-2
rss-uskonto-on-tylsaa
rss-niinku-asia-on
mielipaivakirja
rss-vapaudu-voimaasi
rss-duodecim-lehti
rahapuhetta
ilona-rauhala
aamukahvilla
kesken
dear-ladies
rss-eron-alkemiaa
rss-arkea-ja-aurinkoa-podcast-espanjasta
rss-koira-haudattuna