#208 – Elizabeth Cox on the case that TV shows, movies, and novels can improve the world
80,000 Hours Podcast21 Marras 2024

#208 – Elizabeth Cox on the case that TV shows, movies, and novels can improve the world

"I think stories are the way we shift the Overton window — so widen the range of things that are acceptable for policy and palatable to the public. Almost by definition, a lot of things that are going to be really important and shape the future are not in the Overton window, because they sound weird and off-putting and very futuristic. But I think stories are the best way to bring them in." — Elizabeth Cox

In today’s episode, Keiran Harris speaks with Elizabeth Cox — founder of the independent production company Should We Studio — about the case that storytelling can improve the world.

Links to learn more, highlights, and full transcript.

They cover:

  • How TV shows and movies compare to novels, short stories, and creative nonfiction if you’re trying to do good.
  • The existing empirical evidence for the impact of storytelling.
  • Their competing takes on the merits of thinking carefully about target audiences.
  • Whether stories can really change minds on deeply entrenched issues, or whether writers need to have more modest goals.
  • Whether humans will stay relevant as creative writers with the rise of powerful AI models.
  • Whether you can do more good with an overtly educational show vs other approaches.
  • Elizabeth’s experience with making her new five-part animated show Ada — including why she chose the topics of civilisational collapse, kidney donations, artificial wombs, AI, and gene drives.
  • The pros and cons of animation as a medium.
  • Career advice for creative writers.
  • Keiran’s idea for a longtermist Christmas movie.
  • And plenty more.

Check out Ada on YouTube!

Material you might want to check out before listening:

Chapters:

  • Cold open (00:00:00)
  • Luisa's intro (00:01:04)
  • The interview begins (00:02:52)
  • Is storytelling really a high-impact career option? (00:03:26)
  • Empirical evidence of the impact of storytelling (00:06:51)
  • How storytelling can inform us (00:16:25)
  • How long will humans stay relevant as creative writers? (00:21:54)
  • Ada (00:33:05)
  • Debating the merits of thinking about target audiences (00:38:03)
  • Ada vs other approaches to impact-focused storytelling (00:48:18)
  • Why animation (01:01:06)
  • One Billion Christmases (01:04:54)
  • How storytelling can humanise (01:09:34)
  • But can storytelling actually change strongly held opinions? (01:13:26)
  • Novels and short stories (01:18:38)
  • Creative nonfiction (01:25:06)
  • Other promising ways of storytelling (01:30:53)
  • How did Ada actually get made? (01:33:23)
  • The hardest part of the process for Elizabeth (01:48:28)
  • Elizabeth’s hopes and dreams for Ada (01:53:10)
  • Designing Ada with an eye toward impact (01:59:16)
  • Alternative topics for Ada (02:05:33)
  • Deciding on the best way to get Ada in front of people (02:07:12)
  • Career advice for creative writers (02:11:31)
  • Wikipedia book spoilers (02:17:05)
  • Luisa's outro (02:20:42)


Producer: Keiran Harris
Audio engineering: Ben Cordell, Milo McGuire, Simon Monsour, and Dominic Armstrong
Content editing: Luisa Rodriguez, Katy Moore, and Keiran Harris
Transcriptions: Katy Moore

Jaksot(317)

#202 – Venki Ramakrishnan on the cutting edge of anti-ageing science

#202 – Venki Ramakrishnan on the cutting edge of anti-ageing science

"For every far-out idea that turns out to be true, there were probably hundreds that were simply crackpot ideas. In general, [science] advances building on the knowledge we have, and seeing what the n...

19 Syys 20242h 20min

#201 – Ken Goldberg on why your robot butler isn’t here yet

#201 – Ken Goldberg on why your robot butler isn’t here yet

"Perception is quite difficult with cameras: even if you have a stereo camera, you still can’t really build a map of where everything is in space. It’s just very difficult. And I know that sounds surp...

13 Syys 20242h 1min

#200 – Ezra Karger on what superforecasters and experts think about existential risks

#200 – Ezra Karger on what superforecasters and experts think about existential risks

"It’s very hard to find examples where people say, 'I’m starting from this point. I’m starting from this belief.' So we wanted to make that very legible to people. We wanted to say, 'Experts think thi...

4 Syys 20242h 49min

#199 – Nathan Calvin on California’s AI bill SB 1047 and its potential to shape US AI policy

#199 – Nathan Calvin on California’s AI bill SB 1047 and its potential to shape US AI policy

"I do think that there is a really significant sentiment among parts of the opposition that it’s not really just that this bill itself is that bad or extreme — when you really drill into it, it feels ...

29 Elo 20241h 12min

#198 – Meghan Barrett on upending everything you thought you knew about bugs in 3 hours

#198 – Meghan Barrett on upending everything you thought you knew about bugs in 3 hours

"This is a group of animals I think people are particularly unfamiliar with. They are especially poorly covered in our science curriculum; they are especially poorly understood, because people don’t s...

26 Elo 20243h 48min

#197 – Nick Joseph on whether Anthropic's AI safety policy is up to the task

#197 – Nick Joseph on whether Anthropic's AI safety policy is up to the task

The three biggest AI companies — Anthropic, OpenAI, and DeepMind — have now all released policies designed to make their AI models less likely to go rogue or cause catastrophic damage as they approach...

22 Elo 20242h 29min

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

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

"In the 1980s, it was still apparently common to perform surgery on newborn babies without anaesthetic on both sides of the Atlantic. This led to appalling cases, and to public outcry, and to campaign...

15 Elo 20242h 1min

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

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

"Computational systems have literally millions of physical and conceptual components, and around 98% of them are embedded into your infrastructure without you ever having heard of them. And an inordin...

1 Elo 20242h 8min

Suosittua kategoriassa Koulutus

rss-murhan-anatomia
psykopodiaa-podcast
voi-hyvin-meditaatiot-2
rss-valo-minussa-2
rss-niinku-asia-on
aamukahvilla
rss-narsisti
adhd-podi
rss-duodecim-lehti
rahapuhetta
aloita-meditaatio
kesken
rss-elamankoulu
koulu-podcast-2
salainen-paivakirja
rss-uskonto-on-tylsaa
rss-liian-kuuma-peruna
rss-luonnollinen-synnytys-podcast
rss-koira-haudattuna
rss-hereilla