Your Biggest Lever: Designing your AI Career for Maximum Impact, with 80,000 Hours founder Ben Todd

About this episode

Ben Todd discusses how to design an AI career for maximum impact on humanity.

Ben Todd, co-founder of 80,000 Hours and author of the newly rewritten book by the same name, shares his latest thinking on how individuals can position their careers to improve the chances that AI benefits humanity. They discuss AI timelines reframed around personal impact, top global risks including loss of control over AI systems and dangerous power concentration, the pros and cons of working at frontier AI labs, and undervalued emerging concerns like AI welfare and space governance. Ben also assesses the current funding landscape and whether to join existing organizations or start new ones. LINKS: 80,000 Hours homepage Nick Bostrom Astronomical Waste AI 2027 forecast Ajeya Cotra AI timelines METR evaluations research Redwood Research homepage AI tools existential security Gradual disempowerment EA Forum Why viatopia is important Benjamin Todd author page The Precipice Wikipedia page Forethought Research homepage Catalyze Impact homepage Horizon Public Service Fellowship Gradual Disempowerment paper Mark Humphries faculty profile Andrew Ng discussion thread Cognitive Revolution show home Cognitive Revolution Apple Podcasts Sponsors: Sequence: Sequence handles the full revenue…

People in this episode

Hosts: Erik Torenberg, Nathan Labenz

Guest: Ben Todd

Topics covered

• AI career design
• impact of AI
• global risks
• AI welfare
• funding landscape

Keywords

• AI career
• 80,000 Hours
• global risks
• AI welfare
• funding landscape

Sponsors

Sequence

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: 80,000 Hours, Redwood Research, EA Forum, Forethought Research, Catalyze Impact, Horizon Public Service Fellowship, Cognitive Revolution

Products: Claude

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