80k After Hours

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Highlights: #202 – Venki Ramakrishnan on the cutting edge of anti-ageing science Oct 04, 2024

Show notes

This is a selection of highlights from episode #202 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode:

Venki Ramakrishnan on the cutting edge of anti-ageing science

And if you're finding these highlights episodes valuable, please let us know by emailing podcast@80000hours.org.

Highlights:

Luisa’s intro (00:00:00)
Is death an inevitable consequence of evolution? (00:00:15)
How much additional healthspan will the next 20 to 30 years of ageing research buy us? (00:03:10)
The social impacts of radical life extension (00:05:46)
Could increased longevity increase inequality? (00:10:06)
Does injecting an old body with young blood slow ageing? (00:14:23)
Freezing cells, organs, and bodies (00:18:35)

Highlights put together by Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong

Highlights: #201 – Ken Goldberg on why your robot butler isn’t here yet Sep 30, 2024

Show notes

This is a selection of highlights from episode #201 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode:

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

And if you're finding these highlights episodes valuable, please let us know by emailing podcast@80000hours.org.

Highlights:

Luisa’s intro (00:00:00)
Moravec's paradox (00:00:22)
Successes in robotics to date (00:03:51)
Why perception is a big challenge for robotics (00:07:02)
Why low fault tolerance makes some skills extra hard to automate (00:12:29)
How might robot labour affect the job market? (00:17:19)

Highlights put together by Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong

Highlights: #200 – Ezra Karger on what superforecasters and experts think about existential risks Sep 18, 2024

Show notes

This is a selection of highlights from episode #200 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode:

Ezra Karger on what superforecasters and experts think about existential risks

And if you're finding these highlights episodes valuable, please let us know by emailing podcast@80000hours.org.

Highlights:

Luisa’s intro (00:00:00)
Why we need forecasts about existential risks (00:00:26)
Headline estimates of existential and catastrophic risks (00:02:43)
What explains disagreements about AI risks? (00:06:18)
Learning more doesn't resolve disagreements about AI risks (00:08:59)
A lot of disagreement about AI risks is about when AI will pose risks (00:11:31)
Cruxes about AI risks (00:15:17)
Is forecasting actually useful in the real world? (00:18:24)

Highlights put together by Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong

Highlights: #199 – Nathan Calvin on California’s AI bill SB 1047 and its potential to shape US AI policy Sep 12, 2024

Show notes

This is a selection of highlights from episode #199 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode:

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

And if you're finding these highlights episodes valuable, please let us know by emailing podcast@80000hours.org.

Highlights:

Luisa’s intro (00:00:00)
Why we can't count on AI companies to self-regulate (00:00:21)
SB 1047's impact on open source models (00:04:24)
Why it's not "too early" for AI policies (00:07:54)
Why working on state-level policy could have an outsized impact (00:11:47)

Highlights put together by Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong

Highlights: #198 – Meghan Barrett on challenging our assumptions about insects Sep 09, 2024

Show notes

This is a selection of highlights from episode #198 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode:

Meghan Barrett on challenging our assumptions about insects

And if you're finding these highlights episodes valuable, please let us know by emailing podcast@80000hours.org.

Highlights:

Luisa’s intro (00:00:00)
Size diversity (00:00:16)
Offspring, parental investment, and lifespan (00:03:18)
Headless cockroaches (00:06:13)
Is self-protective behaviour a reflex? (00:08:50)
If insects feel pain, is it mild or severe? (00:11:54)
Evolutionary perspective on insect sentience (00:16:53)
How likely is insect sentience? (00:20:25)

Highlights put together by Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong

Highlights: #197 – Nick Joseph on whether Anthropic’s AI safety policy is up to the task Sep 05, 2024

Show notes

This is a selection of highlights from episode #197 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode:

Nick Joseph on whether Anthropic’s AI safety policy is up to the task

And if you're finding these highlights episodes valuable, please let us know by emailing podcast@80000hours.org.

Highlights:

Rob's intro (00:00:00)
What Anthropic's responsible scaling policy commits the company to doing (00:00:17)
Why Nick is a big fan of the RSP approach (00:02:13)
Are RSPs still valuable if the people using them aren't bought in? (00:05:07)
Nick's biggest reservations about the RSP approach (00:08:01)
Should Anthropic's RSP have wider safety buffers? (00:11:17)
Alternatives to RSPs (00:14:57)
Should concerned people be willing to take capabilities roles? (00:19:22)

Highlights put together by Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong

Highlights: #196 – Jonathan Birch on the edge cases of sentience and why they matter Aug 30, 2024

Show notes

This is a selection of highlights from episode #196 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode:

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

And if you're finding these highlights episodes valuable, please let us know by emailing podcast@80000hours.org.

Chapters:

Luisa’s intro (00:00:00)
The history of neonatal surgery without anaesthetic (00:00:23)
Overconfidence around disorders of consciousness (00:03:17)
Separating abortion from the issue of foetal sentience (00:07:26)
The cases for and against neural organoids (00:11:30)
Artificial sentience arising from whole brain emulations of roundworms and fruit flies (00:15:45)
Using citizens' assemblies to do policymaking (00:22:00)

Highlights put together by Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong

Highlights: #195 – Sella Nevo on who's trying to steal frontier AI models, and what they could do with them Aug 19, 2024

Show notes

This is a selection of highlights from episode #195 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast.

These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode:

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

And if you're finding these highlights episodes valuable, please let us know by emailing podcast@80000hours.org.

Chapters:

Luisa’s intro (00:00:00)
Why protect model weights? (00:00:23)
SolarWinds hack (00:03:51)
Zero-days (00:08:16)
Side-channel attacks (00:11:45)
USB cables (00:15:11)

Highlights put together by Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong

Highlights: #194 – Vitalik Buterin on defensive acceleration and how to regulate AI when you fear government Aug 12, 2024

Show notes

This is a selection of highlights from episode #194 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast.

These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode:

Vitalik Buterin on defensive acceleration and how to regulate AI when you fear government

And if you're finding these highlights episodes valuable, please let us know by emailing podcast@80000hours.org.

Chapters:

Rob’s intro (00:00:00)
Vitalik's "d/acc" alternative (00:00:14)
Biodefence (00:05:31)
How much do people actually disagree? (00:09:49)
Distrust of authority is a big deal (00:15:09)
Info defence and X's Community Notes (00:19:35)
Quadratic voting and funding (00:26:22)
Vitalik's philosophy of half-assing everything (00:30:32)

Highlights put together by Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong

Highlights: #193 – Sihao Huang on the risk that US–China AI competition leads to war Jul 31, 2024

Show notes

This is a selection of highlights from episode #193 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast.

These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode:

Sihao Huang on the risk that US–China AI competition leads to war

And if you're finding these highlights episodes valuable, please let us know by emailing podcast@80000hours.org.

Chapters:

Luisa’s intro (00:00:00)
How advanced is Chinese AI? (00:00:25)
Is China catching up to the US and UK? (00:05:14)
Could China be a source of catastrophic AI risk? (00:07:50)
AI enabling human rights abuses and undermining democracy (00:13:53)
China's attempts at indigenising its semiconductor supply chain (00:18:14)
How the US and UK might coordinate with China (00:20:32)

Highlights put together by Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong

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