#149 – Tim LeBon on how altruistic perfectionism is self-defeating
Being a good and successful person is core to your identity. You place great importance on meeting the high moral, professional, or academic standards you set yourself. But inevitably, something goes ...
12 Apr 20233h 11min
#148 – Johannes Ackva on unfashionable climate interventions that work, and fashionable ones that don't
If you want to work to tackle climate change, you should try to reduce expected carbon emissions by as much as possible, right? Strangely, no. Today's guest, Johannes Ackva — the climate research lead...
3 Apr 20232h 17min
#147 – Spencer Greenberg on stopping valueless papers from getting into top journals
Can you trust the things you read in published scientific research? Not really. About 40% of experiments in top social science journals don't get the same result if the experiments are repeated.Two ke...
24 Mar 20232h 38min
#146 – Robert Long on why large language models like GPT (probably) aren't conscious
By now, you’ve probably seen the extremely unsettling conversations Bing’s chatbot has been having. In one exchange, the chatbot told a user:"I have a subjective experience of being conscious, aware, ...
14 Mar 20233h 12min
#145 – Christopher Brown on why slavery abolition wasn't inevitable
In many ways, humanity seems to have become more humane and inclusive over time. While there’s still a lot of progress to be made, campaigns to give people of different genders, races, sexualities, et...
11 Feb 20232h 42min
#144 – Athena Aktipis on why cancer is actually one of our universe's most fundamental phenomena
What’s the opposite of cancer?If you answered “cure,” “antidote,” or “antivenom” — you’ve obviously been reading the antonym section at www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cancer.But today’s guest Athen...
26 Jan 20233h 15min
#79 Classic episode - A.J. Jacobs on radical honesty, following the whole Bible, and reframing global problems as puzzles
Rebroadcast: this episode was originally released in June 2020. Today’s guest, New York Times bestselling author A.J. Jacobs, always hated Judge Judy. But after he found out that she was his seventh...
16 Jan 20232h 35min
#81 Classic episode - Ben Garfinkel on scrutinising classic AI risk arguments
Rebroadcast: this episode was originally released in July 2020. 80,000 Hours, along with many other members of the effective altruism movement, has argued that helping to positively shape the develo...
9 Jan 20232h 37min
