Effective Altruism: Ten Global Problems – 80,000 Hours (October 2021)

Effective Altruism: Ten Global Problems is a collection of ten top episodes of the 80,000 Hours Podcast, designed to bring you up to speed on ten pressing issues the effective altruism community is working to solve. Here the host of the show — Rob Wiblin — briefly explains what effective altruism is all about, and what to expect from the rest of this series.

The very best education interventions are phenomenally cost-effective, but they’re not the kinds of things you’d expect, says Dr Rachel Glennerster — who we chose to introduce the problem of global poverty.

The 80,000 Hours team found Brian Christian's new book The Alignment Problem to be an insightful and comprehensive review of the state of the research into making advanced artificial intelligence useful and reliably safe, and we thought he'd be a great person to introduce the problem.

Jennifer Doleac — Associate Professor of Economics at Texas A&M University, and Director of the Justice Tech Lab — is an expert on empirical research into policing, law and incarceration, and we chose her to introduce the problem of criminal justice reform.

Many people aren’t comfortable with the danger posed by nuclear power. But given the climatic stakes, it’s worth asking: Just how much more dangerous is it compared to fossil fuels? According to today’s guest, Mark Lynas — author of Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet (winner of the prestigious Royal Society Prizes for Science Books) and Nuclear 2.0. — it’s actually much, much safer. We chose Mark to introduce the problem of climate change.

Most animals are hunted by predators, and constantly have to remain vigilant lest they be killed, and perhaps experience the terror of being eaten alive. Resource competition often leads to chronic hunger or starvation. Their diseases and injuries are never treated. In winter wild animals freeze to death and in droughts they die of heat or thirst.There are fewer than 20 people in the world dedicating their lives to researching these problems.But according to Persis Eskander, if we sum up the negative experiences of all wild animals, their sheer number – trillions to quintillions, depending on which you count – could make the scale of the problem larger than most other near-term concerns. We chose Persis to introduce the problem of wild animal suffering.Full transcript, related links, and summary of this interviewThis episode first broadcast on the regular 80,000 Hours Podcast feed on April 15, 2019. Some related episodes include:#91 – Lewis Bollard on big wins against factory farming and how they happened#99 – Leah Garcés on turning adversaries into allies to change the chicken industry#26 – Marie Gibbons on how exactly clean meat is created & the advances needed to get it in every supermarket#20 – Bruce Friedrich on inventing outstanding meat substitutes to end speciesism & factory farming#14 – Sharon Nunez & Jose Valle on going undercover to expose animal abuseSeries produced by Keiran Harris.