#142 – John McWhorter on key lessons from linguistics, the virtue of creoles, and language extinction
John McWhorter is a linguistics professor at Columbia University specialising in research on creole languages.He's also a content-producing machine, never afraid to give his frank opinion on anything ...
20 Dec 20221h 47min
#141 – Richard Ngo on large language models, OpenAI, and striving to make the future go well
Large language models like GPT-3, and now ChatGPT, are neural networks trained on a large fraction of all text available on the internet to do one thing: predict the next word in a passage. This simpl...
13 Dec 20222h 44min
My experience with imposter syndrome — and how to (partly) overcome it (Article)
Today’s release is a reading of our article called My experience with imposter syndrome — and how to (partly) overcome it, written and narrated by Luisa Rodriguez. If you want to check out the links...
8 Dec 202244min
Rob's thoughts on the FTX bankruptcy
In this episode, usual host of the show Rob Wiblin gives his thoughts on the recent collapse of FTX. Click here for an official 80,000 Hours statement. And here are links to some potentially relev...
23 Nov 20225min
#140 – Bear Braumoeller on the case that war isn't in decline
Is war in long-term decline? Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature brought this previously obscure academic question to the centre of public debate, and pointed to rates of death in war to a...
8 Nov 20222h 47min
#139 – Alan Hájek on puzzles and paradoxes in probability and expected value
A casino offers you a game. A coin will be tossed. If it comes up heads on the first flip you win $2. If it comes up on the second flip you win $4. If it comes up on the third you win $8, the fourth y...
28 Okt 20223h 38min
Preventing an AI-related catastrophe (Article)
Today’s release is a professional reading of our new problem profile on preventing an AI-related catastrophe, written by Benjamin Hilton. We expect that there will be substantial progress in AI in t...
14 Okt 20222h 24min
#138 – Sharon Hewitt Rawlette on why pleasure and pain are the only things that intrinsically matter
What in the world is intrinsically good — good in itself even if it has no other effects? Over the millennia, people have offered many answers: joy, justice, equality, accomplishment, loving god, wisd...
30 Sep 20222h 24min
