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Nov 27, 2024 | 
80000hours.org | Robert Wiblin |Keiran Harris
That’s why when [Sam Altman] was ousted and everyone said, “Look, all the employees want him back!” Well, yes, because they all have an interest in the for-profit. And really it’s just the nonprofit board at the nonprofit level … all the employees who were at that nonprofit level initially got moved down to the for-profit … So there’s not a lot of people standing up for that nonprofit.
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Nov 21, 2024 | 
80000hours.org | Keiran Harris
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.
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Oct 16, 2024 | 
80000hours.org | Robert Wiblin |Keiran Harris
TranscriptNate Silver: People think of tilt as what happens, which it often does, when you’re on a losing streak or take a bad beat. And therefore, you can have different reactions: you can either try to chase your losses, or just as often people become way too tentative and risk averse. But winners’ tilt can be just as bad, right?
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Aug 22, 2024 | 
80000hours.org | Robert Wiblin |Keiran Harris
TranscriptNick Joseph: I think this is a spot where there are many people who are sceptical that models will ever be capable of this sort of catastrophic danger. Therefore they’re like, “We shouldn’t take precautions, because the models aren’t that smart.” I think this is a nice way to agree where you can.
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Jul 26, 2024 | 
80000hours.org | Robert Wiblin |Keiran Harris
… if you’re a power that is an island and that goes by sea, then you’re more likely to do things like valuing freedom, being democratic, being pro-foreigner, being open-minded, being interested in trade. If you are on the Mongolian steppes, then your entire mindset is kill or be killed, conquer or be conquered … the breeding ground for basically everything that all of us consider to be dystopian governance.
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Jul 5, 2024 | 
80000hours.org | Robert Wiblin |Keiran Harris
The AI advisor would point out all of these places where the system is making the top-level objective of getting a vaccine quickly, where that’s going wrong, and clarifies which changes will make it happen quicker. “If you replace person X with person Y; if you cancel this regulation, these outcomes will happen, and you’ll get the vaccine earlier. People’s lives will be saved, the economy will be rebooted,” et cetera.
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Jun 27, 2024 | 
80000hours.org | Robert Wiblin |Keiran Harris
Consider just the magnitude of the hammer that is being applied to this situation: it’s going from millions of scientists and engineers and entrepreneurs to billions and trillions on the compute and AI software side. It’s just a very large change. You should also be surprised if such a large change doesn’t affect other macroscopic variables in the way that, say, the introduction of hominids has radically changed the biosphere, and the Industrial Revolution greatly changed human society.
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Apr 11, 2024 | 
80000hours.org | Robert Wiblin |Keiran Harris
TranscriptZvi Mowshowitz: If you think there is a group of let’s say 2,000 people in the world, and they are the people who are primarily tasked with actively working to destroy it: they are working at the most destructive job per unit of effort that you could possibly have. I am saying get your career capital not as one of those 2,000 people. That’s a very, very small ask. I am not putting that big a burden on you here, right?
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Apr 4, 2024 | 
80000hours.org | Robert Wiblin |Keiran Harris
TranscriptSpencer Greenberg: So we could imagine a coordinate system: you’ve got value on one axis, hype on the other axisSo let’s start with pure hype. We’ve got something like art NFTs that nobody even likes looking at. They’re just like ugly art NFTs, right? Then we have things that are pure value, no hype. Let’s say doorknobs. Doorknobs are just really good at what they do. Like, so good at what they do, you don’t even think about it. When you need a doorknob, you buy a doorknob, you’re satisfied.
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Feb 21, 2024 | 
80000hours.org | Robert Wiblin |Keiran Harris
Enjoyed the episode? Want to listen later? Subscribe here, or anywhere you get podcasts: There are now dozens, if not hundreds, of experiments showing that in the overwhelming or the quasi-entirety of the cases, when you give people a good argument for something, something that is based in fact, some authority that they trust, then they are going to change their mind. Maybe not enough, not as much as we’d like them to, but the change will be in the direction that you would expect.
