80,000 Hours - Narrations

Our overall view Sometimes recommended We’d love to see more people working on this issue. But you might be able to do even more good working on one of our top priority problem areas. See the scores for all problems we've investigated. --> Profile depth Exploratory That's the end of the summary. The main problem profile begins now. Why might science policy and infrastructure be a pressing issue? S...

Our overall view Sometimes recommended Working on this problem could be among the best ways of improving the long-term future, but we know of fewer high-impact opportunities to work on this issue than on our top priority problems. See the scores for all problems we've investigated. --> Profile depth Exploratory That's the end of the summary. The main problem profile begins now. Why might developin...

Why might the possibility of artificial sentience be an especially pressing issue? AI systems in the future may be moral patients. Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (00:36) Why might the possibility of artificial sentience be an especially pressing issue? (04:16) Learn more about the possibility of artificial sentience (05:12) Explore other pressing world problems --- First published: May 18th, 2022 So...

Our overall view Sometimes recommended Working on this problem could be among the best ways of improving the long-term future, but we know of fewer high-impact opportunities to work on this issue than on our top priority problems. See the scores for all problems we've investigated. --> Profile depth Exploratory That's the end of the summary. The main problem profile begins now. Why might it be par...

Could climate change lead to the end of civilisation? Across the world, over half of young people worry that, as a result of climate change, humanity is doomed. Hickman et al., 2021, Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey. Hickman et al. surveyed 10,000 children and young people (aged 16–25 years) in 10 countries...

Many proposals to reduce risks from misaligned AI may need a lot of high-quality data from people that can be used to train machine learning models. Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (00:47) Sometimes recommended -- personal fit dependent (00:59) Review status (01:04) Why might becoming an expert in data collection for AI alignment be high impact? (02:58) What does this path involve? (04:29) Avoiding h...

In a nutshell: I have imposter syndrome, and I suspect many other people trying to have a big impact with their career do, too. For a long time, imposter syndrome massively limited the impact of my career by causing me to rule out potentially impactful options and affecting my day-to-day job performance and satisfaction — but through talk therapy and other tools, I’ve mostly overcome it. If you th...

Delete Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (00:26) Sometimes recommended — personal fit dependent (00:38) Review status (00:42) How can engineers best make a difference? (01:10) Preventing catastrophic pandemics (02:03) AI alignment (02:19) Improving civilisational resilience (03:21) Fight climate change (03:56) Other problem areas that need engineers (04:32) Options outside engineering that can use engi...

In a nutshell: People in operations roles act as multipliers, maximising the productivity of others in the organisation via building systems that keep the organisation functioning effectively at a high level. As a result, people who excel in these positions require significant creativity, self-direction, social skills, and conscientiousness. If you’re a good fit, operations could be the highest-im...

Humanity’s long-run future could be vast in scale and duration, because almost all of it could lie beyond Earth. As private interest in space increases, early work on space governance could positively shape that spacefaring future, and make it less likely that a future in space goes irreversibly wrong. Of course, it also matters that humanity avoids catastrophe in the meantime, and space governanc...

Software engineers can contribute directly to solving some of the world’s most pressing problems. There is a shortage of software engineers at the cutting edge of research into AI safety. Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (01:34) In a nutshell: (02:02) Pros (02:21) Cons (02:50) Key facts on fit (03:06) Sometimes recommended -- personal fit dependent (03:18) Review status (03:47) Why might software engi...

How much career exploration should you do? We draw on research from computer science, psychology and elsewhere to provide a practical answer. Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (01:30) Career exploration in a nutshell (02:47) The information value of exploration (05:11) Amanda Askell (05:29) Which jobs should you take to explore? (06:34) Tradeoffs of career exploration (08:10) Career exploration strateg...

In a nutshell: We suspect that different ways of tackling climate change vary significantly in their impact. This means focusing on the most effective methods is likely much higher impact — especially if you focus on the most extreme risks from climate change. Sometimes recommended — personal fit dependent This career will be some people's highest-impact option if their personal fit is especially...

In a nutshell: The effective altruism community seeks to support people trying to have a large positive impact. Organising an effective altruism local or student group can be unusually high impact, because it's often possible to get several other people involved in working on pressing problems or supporting effective charities. Sometimes recommended — personal fit dependent This career will be som...

In a nutshell: Working on neglected global problems that could be even more pressing than those we currently prioritise could be very high impact. If you identify such a problem, resources could be directed to address it much earlier than might have been done otherwise. On the other hand, if your research indicates a potential problem shouldn’t be prioritised, then you can write up your findings f...

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This is a high risk but potentially very high impact path. Public intellectuals can do a lot of good by spreading important ideas -- when they succeed. Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (00:40) Sometimes recommended -- highly competitive (00:51) Review status (00:56) Why might becoming a public intellectual be high impact? (03:26) Learn more (04:10) Want one-on-one advice on pursuing this path? --- Fir...

## Why is research management high impact? In general, we think that helping others to have a greater positive impact than they would have had otherwise is sometimes underappreciated, and that it's an important and valid way to do good. Indeed, that's our strategy here at 80,000 Hours. One way of enhancing the impact of others' work is research management. Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (00:30) Some...

In a nutshell: A good executive assistant can dramatically increase someone's impact. If you work for someone doing high-impact work, you might be able to boost their daily productivity by about 10%, just by freeing up time they would otherwise spend on tasks that don’t take full advantage of their skills. That's equivalent to having one tenth (or more) as much impact as they have — which could be...

In a nutshell: There are many options for making progress on policy: you can research which policy proposals make the most sense for the long-term future, advocate for specific proposals, or do implementation. We expect that many policy careers focused on longtermism could be as impactful as our highest-priority career paths, but we haven’t learned enough about them to be confident about which are...

In a nutshell: India and Russia seem likely to become increasingly important over the next few decades — politically, militarily, economically, and technologically. Because of this, we expect that helping Western institutions better cooperate with Russian and Indian actors might be highly impactful, especially if you’re early in your career (and therefore able to spend the next decade developing r...

Delete Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (00:36) Sometimes recommended -- under-researched (00:48) Review status (00:53) Why might becoming an expert in formal verification be high impact? (02:12) Want one-on-one advice on pursuing this path? (02:33) Learn more (02:48) Learn about other high-impact careers --- First published: October 21st, 2021 Source: https://80000hours.org/career-reviews/formal-veri...

Find out how to become a historian to help understand how technology and social change could affect the future. Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (00:28) Sometimes recommended -- highly competitive (00:39) Review status (00:44) Why might becoming a historian of large social trends be high impact? (03:09) Example of someone pursuing this path (03:14) Tom Moynihan (04:09) Want one-on-one advice on pursui...

You can help figure out which global problems are most pressing by working in global priorities research. Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (00:37) Recommended (00:47) Review status (00:52) Why might global priorities research be high impact? (04:18) What does this path involve? (06:55) Example of someone pursuing this path: Luisa Rodriguez (07:31) How to assess your fit (09:02) How to enter this field...

You can work on making better predictions of future events in order to guide decision-making by powerful governments and institutions. Narrated by AI. --- Outline: (00:51) Recommended (01:01) Review status (01:06) Why might forecasting research and implementation be high impact? (02:19) What does this path involve? (04:22) Examples of people pursuing this path (04:27) Danny Hernandez (05:01) Julia...