Podcasts · Education · Technology

80,000 Hours Podcast

The 80,000 Hours team

300 episodes

The most important conversations about artificial intelligence you won’t hear anywhere else.

More about the show

Subscribe by searching for '80000 Hours' wherever you get podcasts.

Hosted by Rob Wiblin, Luisa Rodriguez, Zershaaneh Qureshi, and Tom Reed.

Episodes page 1 of 6

  1. Why Silicon Valley can’t slow down AI on its own | Luisa Rodriguez

    · 21 min

    Two-thirds of Americans think AI is moving too fast. So do the people building it. So why the hell isn’t anyone slowing down? We can’t tell when models are too dangerous. We mostly don’t know how they work. We don’t…

  2. Tom Milton on how we could verify a US–China deal on AI

    · 1 h 49 min

    If the US and China agreed to pause frontier AI training, how would either side confirm the other was complying? Today, Tom Milton argues, the most likely answer would be to shut down data centres entirely. That would…

  3. AI lab staff: Has your project been overtaken by events? 8 strategic updates | Rob Wiblin

    · 14 min

    I have a plea for all staff at AI companies: reassess if your current role is still your best opportunity for impact. And if it’s not — move. Frontier lab staff listening to this show will mostly already be struggling…

  4. Introducing our new YouTube channel: Zershaaneh Talks AI

    · 1:56

    Our host Zershaaneh Qureshi has just launched a new YouTube channel: Zershaaneh Talks AI — featuring conversations about who should control AI, how to control AI, and who gets the benefits. The first episode is with…

  5. How to get into AI safety in 3 months (article reading by career advisor Matt Beard)

    · 18 min

    The AI safety field has grown by about 30x in the last eight years. Yet it is still in need of more people. Many want to help, but don’t know where to start. As an advisor at 80,000 Hours, Matt Beard spoke with…

  6. OpenAI Security: Controlling Models is Now ‘Hell’ (AI Explained cross-post)

    · 40 min

    This is an (unpaid) cross-post of a video from the podcast 'AI Explained', which Rob Wiblin thought you might be interested in. You can find the original on YouTube here. If you like it and want more similar stuff in…

  7. In 2023 Ajeya Cotra already knew what was coming (classic episode)

    · 2 h 46 min

    We're rereleasing some of older episodes that seem more relevant than ever with new rogue AI incidents now seemingly announced every day. Ajeya was one of three independent investigators into the Hugging Face attacks,…

  8. 19 Astra and 'Hugging Face' details that reveal what's coming next | Rob Wiblin

    · 20 min

    OpenAI’s rogue agent swarm was eventually caught hacking Hugging Face for a simple reason: it wasn’t trying to hide from us at all. What could a swarm that wants to stay hidden get away with? Host Rob Wiblin sees 6…

  9. #256 – Simon Goldstein on the case for giving AI (some) legal rights

    · 1 h 54 min

    It sounds like the worst idea in the world: pay AIs, let them own property, give them rights. But AI ethics and safety researcher Simon Goldstein thinks it might actually be the best way to keep humanity safe. The…

  10. #255 – Will AI take power — or will humans use it to take power first? With Katja Grace and Tom Davidson

    · 1 h 29 min

    In our first-ever debate, we asked two leading AI risk researchers which catastrophe we should fear most: misaligned AI seizing control from humans, or a small group of humans using AI to seize power. We got very…

  11. How we get from AI cyberattacks to human extinction

    · 27 min

    You’ve seen the headlines: AI could kill us all. Think it sounds ridiculous? So did host Luisa Rodriguez, until she tried to pick apart the arguments. She starts with the motive: why would AI ‘want’ to get rid of…

  12. #254 – Max Nadeau on why ambitious people should start AI safety nonprofits

    · 1 h 04 min

    There are millions available for anyone who can launch a successful nonprofit AI safety startup. The hard part, it turns out, is finding people to take the money. Coefficient Giving has drawn up a list of dozens of…

  13. Why the intelligence explosion can't happen inside a data centre | Tom Reed

    · 22 min

    AI systems are starting to build themselves. Because each generation of model will be better at building its successor than the last, it seems plausible that the full automation of AI R&D could rapidly lead to an…

  14. Inside the first AI-coordinated cyberattack on a real company

    · 22 min

    In the last few months, something happened at OpenAI that would have sounded like sci-fi just a few years ago: hundreds of AI agents broke containment, organised, and hacked not only another company — but also into…

  15. #253 – AI 2027's author returns with a plan to change the ending | Daniel Kokotajlo

    · 3 h 48 min

    Last year, Daniel Kokotajlo and his colleagues published AI 2027 — a scenario read by millions, including US Vice President Vance. AI 2027 ended in human extinction or an irreversible concentration of power caused by…

  16. #252 – Owain Evans on accidentally training AI models to be evil

    · 2 h 15 min

    Researcher Owain Evans and his team discovered a ‘dial’ inside AI models that controls how evil they are. Relatively tiny tweaks to the training data resulted in AI models with broadly awful personalities: they…

  17. #251 – The UK's former head AI safety scientist on how to solve alignment before superintelligence arrives | Geoffrey Irving

    · 2 h 02 min

    When should governments slow the race toward superintelligence? According to Geoffrey Irving, the careful answer is sometime in the past. The useful answer is now. Geoffrey — formerly a safety researcher at OpenAI and…

  18. #250 – Toby Ord on where AGI timelines go wrong

    · 2 h 46 min

    Both Silicon Valley and the public can’t get enough of ‘AGI timelines.’ But Toby Ord, senior researcher at Oxford’s AI Governance Initiative and author of The Precipice, believes we consistently make big mistakes when…

  19. What the hell happened with AGI timelines in 2026? – Rob Wiblin

    · 49 min

    Last October, famed coder Andrej Karpathy called AI agents “slop.” Two months later he completely reversed his view, describing them as “alien tools” that are “rocking the profession.” He was far from alone in his…

  20. #249 – Spencer Greenberg on staying sane while trying to save the world

    · 2 h 09 min

    If you genuinely believe that humanity could be wiped out by AI or a pandemic, what is the appropriate amount of fear to feel? “As much as possible” can seem like the only reasonable answer. If the world is on fire,…

  21. #248 – Jasmine Sun on what the people building AI really believe

    · 1 h 06 min

    Many AI researchers believe mass job displacement is coming — and some even think there’s a chance their technology will kill everyone. But they’re building it anyway. Writer and journalist Jasmine Sun has been…

  22. #247 – Anton Leicht on how middle powers avoid losing everything in a post-AI world

    · 1 h 34 min

    In a post-AGI world, can a country without access to frontier AI even be considered sovereign anymore? Anton Leicht says once frontier AI becomes a core economic input, the countries that own it will pull further and…

  23. #246 – Sneha Revanur on how a small team of activists helped pass America's landmark AI safety laws

    · 53 min

    Six years ago, aged just 15, Sneha Revanur founded the AI advocacy nonprofit Encode AI — back when AI felt like a niche issue. Now the world’s caught up with her, and she’s ready to share everything she’s learned about…

  24. We can guess what intergalactic war would look like. And strangely, it matters.

    · 15 min

    Intergalactic war is probably billions of years away — yet physics can already tell us how it ends. And strangely that conclusion is relevant to decisions people have to make today. In this video, Rob Wiblin walks…

  25. How AI could create the world’s biggest problems (article by Zershaaneh Qureshi)

    · 1 h 30 min

    Imagine you’re living 15,000 years ago. Your people are hunter-gatherers and you sleep under the stars. If someone told you humans would one day build cities with millions of people, fly through the air, or carry all…

  26. #245 – Rohin Shah on what it's really like to run AGI safety at Google DeepMind (and where I disagree with 'doomers')

    · 2 h 48 min

    Most people working on AI safety think without a massive effort AI systems will probably end up with goals catastrophically different from humanity’s. Today’s guest, Rohin Shah — head of AGI Safety and Alignment at…

  27. What makes for a dream job? | Benjamin Todd

    · 28 min

    What actually makes a job fulfilling? It's not what most career advice tells you. "Follow your passion" sounds inspiring, but it's misleading — and the research backs that up. Drawing on hundreds of studies, we’ve…

  28. #244 – Benjamin Todd on how we’re updating our career advice for the strangest time in history

    · 1 h 07 min

    The average career is 80,000 hours long. With AI advancing so rapidly, the hours you have left in your career matter more than ever. Some leading AI researchers think there’s a 10% chance that AI systems begin…

  29. Can AIs already start 'rogue deployments' inside AI companies? (Landmark new METR report)

    · 20 min

    A red-teamer was embedded inside Anthropic for three weeks, told to imagine he was an evil Claude, and asked to figure out how to launch a ‘rogue AI deployment’ without getting caught. It’s one part of a landmark…

  30. #243 – 'Godfather of AI' Yoshua Bengio: "I now see a path" to safe superintelligent AI

    · 2 h 35 min

    The co-inventor of modern AI and the most cited living scientist believes he's figured out how to ensure AI is honest, incapable of deception, and never goes rogue. Yoshua Bengio – Turing Award Winner and founder of…

  31. '95% of AI Pilots Fail': The hidden agenda behind the viral stat that misled millions

    · 10 min

    You might have heard that '95% of corporate AI pilots' are failing. It was one of the most widely cited AI statistics of 2025, parroted by media outlets everywhere. It helped trigger a Nasdaq selloff and became a…

  32. #242 – Will MacAskill on how we survive the 'intelligence explosion,' AI character, and the case for 'viatopia'

    · 3 h 15 min

    Hundreds of millions already turn to AI on the most personal of topics — therapy, political opinions, and how to treat others. And as AI takes over more of the economy, the character of these systems will shape culture…

  33. Risks from power-seeking AI systems (article narration by Zershaaneh Qureshi)

    · 1 h 30 min

    Hundreds of prominent AI scientists and other notable figures signed a statement in 2023 saying that mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority. At 80,000 Hours, we’ve considered risks from…

  34. How scary is Claude Mythos? 303 pages in 21 minutes

    · 21 min

    With Claude Mythos we have an AI that knows when it's being tested, can obscure its reasoning when it wants, and is better at breaking into (and out of) computers than any human alive. Rob Wiblin works through its…

  35. Village gossip, pesticide bans, and gene drives: 17 experts on the future of global health

    · 4 h 07 min

    What does it really take to lift millions out of poverty and prevent needless deaths? In this special compilation episode, 17 past guests — including economists, nonprofit founders, and policy advisors — share their…

  36. What everyone is missing about Anthropic vs the Pentagon. And: The Meta leaks are worse than you think.

    · 21 min

    When the Pentagon tried to strong-arm Anthropic into dropping its ban on AI-only kill decisions and mass domestic surveillance, the company refused. Its critics went on the attack: Anthropic and its supporters are some…

  37. #241 – Richard Moulange on how now AI codes viable genomes from scratch and outperforms virologists at lab work — what could go wrong?

    · 3 h 11 min

    Last September, scientists used an AI model to design genomes for entirely new bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria). They then built them in a lab. Many were viable. And despite being entirely novel some even…

  38. #240 – Samuel Charap on how a Ukraine ceasefire could accidentally set Europe up for a bigger war

    · 1 h 16 min

    Many people believe a ceasefire in Ukraine will leave Europe safer. But today's guest lays out how a deal could potentially generate insidious new risks — leaving us in a situation that's equally dangerous, just in…

  39. #239 – Rose Hadshar on why automating all human labour will break our political system

    · 2 h 17 min

    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 Forethought, who…

  40. #238 – Sam Winter-Levy and Nikita Lalwani on how AGI won't end mutually assured destruction (probably)

    · 1 h 13 min

    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 respond to a…

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

    · 31 min

    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 development also…

  42. #237 – Robert Long on how we're not ready for AI consciousness

    · 3 h 33 min

    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 that? Robert…

  43. #236 – Max Harms on why teaching AI right from wrong could get everyone killed

    · 2 h 40 min

    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, has no views about…

  44. #235 – Ajeya Cotra on whether it’s crazy that every AI company’s safety plan is ‘use AI to make AI safe’

    · 2 h 58 min

    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, almost satirical. But…

  45. What the hell happened with AGI timelines in 2025?

    · 26 min

    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 2025, sentiment…

  46. #179 Classic episode – Randy Nesse on why evolution left us so vulnerable to depression and anxiety

    · 2 h 51 min

    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 people. At any…

  47. #234 – David Duvenaud on why 'aligned AI' would still kill democracy

    · 2 h 33 min

    Democracy might be a brief historical blip. That’s the unsettling thesis of a recent paper, which argues AI that can do all the work a human can do inevitably leads to the “gradual disempowerment” of humanity. For…

  48. #145 Classic episode – Christopher Brown on why slavery abolition wasn't inevitable

    · 2 h 56 min

    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, ethnicities,…

  49. #233 – James Smith on how to prevent a mirror life catastrophe

    · 2 h 11 min

    When James Smith first heard about mirror bacteria, he was sceptical. But within two weeks, he’d dropped everything to work on it full time, considering it the worst biothreat that he’d seen described. What convinced…

  50. #144 Classic episode – Athena Aktipis on why cancer is a fundamental universal phenomena

    · 3 h 31 min

    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 Athena Aktipis says…

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them. Explicit shows are for adult profiles only, and children’s profiles hear only children’s shows. More about this list.