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Dean Spears is an an Economic Demographer, Development Economist, and Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Texas at Austin. With Michael Geruso , Dean is the co-author of After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People . You can see a full transcript and a list of resources on the episode page on our website . We're back from a hiatus! We still intend to post new ep...

Max Smeets is a Senior Researcher at ETH Zurich's Center for Security Studies and Co-Director of Virtual Routes You can find links and a transcript at www.hearthisidea.com/episodes/smeets In this episode we talk about: The different types of cyber operations that a nation state might launch How international norms formed around what kind of cyber attacks are “allowed” The challenges that even elit...

Tom Kalil is the CEO of Renaissance Philanthropy . He also served in the White House for two presidents (under Obama and Clinton); where he helped establish incentive prizes in government through challenge.gov ; in addition to dozens of science and tech program. More recently Tom served as the Chief Innovation Officer at Schmidt Futures , where he helped launch Convergent Research . Matt Clancy is...

Dr Cynthia Schuck-Paim is the Scientific Director of the Welfare Footprint Project , a scientific effort to quantify animal welfare to inform practice, policy, investing and purchasing decisions. You can find links and a transcript at www.hearthisidea.com/episodes/schuck . We discuss: How to begin thinking about quantifying animal experiences in a cross-comparable way Whether the ability to feel p...

Dan Williams is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Sussex and an Associate Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI) at the University of Cambridge. You can find links and a transcript at www.hearthisidea.com/episodes/williams . We discuss: If reasoning is so useful, why are we so bad at it? Do some bad ideas really work like ‘mind viruses’? Is the ‘luxury bel...

Tamay Besiroglu is a researcher working on the intersection of economics and AI. He is currently the Associate Director of Epoch AI , a research institute investigating key trends and questions that will shape the trajectory and governance of AI. You can find links and a transcript at www.hearthisidea.com/episodes/besiroglu In this episode we talked about open source the risks and benefits of open...

Jacob Trefethen oversees Open Philanthropy’s science and science policy programs. He was a Henry Fellow at Harvard University, and has a B.A. from the University of Cambridge. You can find links and a transcript at www.hearthisidea.com/episodes/trefethen In this episode we talked about open source the risks and benefits of open source AI models. We talk about: Life-saving health technologies which...

Elizabeth Seger is the Director of Technology Policy at Demos , a cross-party UK think tank with a program on trustworthy AI . You can find links and a transcript at www.hearthisidea.com/episodes/seger   In this episode we talked about open source the risks and benefits of open source AI models. We talk about: What ‘open source’ really means What is (and isn’t) open about ‘open source’ AI models H...

Joe Carlsmith is a writer, researcher, and philosopher. He works as a senior research analyst at Open Philanthropy , where he focuses on existential risk from advanced artificial intelligence. He also writes independently about various topics in philosophy and futurism, and holds a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Oxford. You can find links and a transcript at www.hearthisidea.com/ep...

Eric Schwitzgebel is a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside . His main interests include connections between empirical psychology and philosophy of mind and the nature of belief . His book The Weirdness of the World can be found here . We talk about: The possibility of digital consciousness Policy ideas for avoiding major moral mistakes around digital consciousness Pr...

Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley is an associate professor at George Mason University and Deputy Director of their Biodefence Programme In this episode we talk about: Where the belief that 'bioweapons are easy to make' came from and why it has been difficult to change Why transferring tacit knowledge is so difficult -- and the particular challenges that rogue actors face As well as lastly what Sonia mak...

In this bonus episode we are sharing an episode by another podcast: How I Learned To Love Shrimp . It is co-hosted by Amy Odene and James Ozden, who together are "showcasing innovative and impactful ways to help animals". In this interview they speak to David Coman-Hidy, who is the former President of The Humane –League, one of the largest farm animal advocacy organisations in the world....

Michelle Lavery is a Program Associate with Open Philanthropy’s Farm Animal Welfare team , with a focus on the science and study of animal behaviour & welfare. You can see more links and a full transcript at hearthisidea.com/episodes/lavery In this episode we talk about: How do scientists study animal emotions in the first place? How is a "science" of animal emotion even feasible? Wh...

Dr Richard Bruns is a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security , and before that was a Senior Economist at the US Food and Drug Administration (the FDA). In this episode we talk about the importance of indoor air quality (IAQ), and how to improve it. Including: Estimating the DALY cost of unclean indoor air from pathogens and particulate matter How much pandemic risk could be...

Saloni Dattani is a Researcher at Our World in Data , and a founder & editor at the online magazine Works in Progress . She holds a PhD in psychiatric genetics from King’s College London. You can see more links and a full transcript at hearthisidea.com/episodes/dattani . In this episode we talk about: The history of malaria and attempts to eradicate it The role of DDT and insecticide spraying...

Liv Boeree is a former poker champion turned science communicator and podcaster, with a background in astrophysics. In 2014, she founded the nonprofit Raising for Effective Giving , which has raised more than $14 million for effective charities. Before retiring from professional poker in 2019, Liv was the Female Player of the Year for three years running. Currently she hosts the Win-Win podcast (y...

Jon Y is the creator of the Asianometry YouTube channel and accompanying newsletter. He describes his channel as making "video essays on business, economics, and history. Sometimes about Asia, but not always." You can see more links and a full transcript at hearthisidea.com/episodes/asianometry In this episode we talk about: Compute trends driving recent progress in Artificial Intelligen...

Steven Teles s is a Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University and a Senior Fellow at the Niskanen Center. His work focuses on American politics and he written several books on topics such as elite politics, the judiciary, and mass incarceration. You can see more links and a full transcript at hearthisidea.com/teles In this episode we talk about: The rise of the conservative legal...

Guive Assadi is a Research Scholar at the Center for the Governance of AI . Guive’s research focuses on the conceptual clarification of, and prioritisation among, potential risks posed by emerging technologies. He holds a master’s in history from Cambridge University, and a bachelor’s from UC Berkeley. In this episode, we discuss Guive's paper, Will Humanity Choose Its Future? . What is an 'evolut...

Michael Cohen is is a DPhil student at the University of Oxford with Mike Osborne . He will be starting a postdoc with Professor Stuart Russell at UC Berkeley, with the Center for Human-Compatible AI . His research considers the expected behaviour of generally intelligent artificial agents, with a view to designing agents that we can expect to behave safely. You can see more links and a full trans...

Katja Grace is a researcher and writer. She runs AI Impacts , a research project trying to incrementally answer decision-relevant questions about the future of artificial intelligence (AI). Katja blogs primarily at worldspiritsockpuppet , and indirectly at Meteuphoric , Worldly Positions , LessWrong and the EA Forum . We discuss: What is AI Impacts working on? Counterarguments to the basic AI x-ri...

Michael Aird is a senior research manager at Rethink Priorities , where he co-leads the Artificial Intelligence Governance and Strategy team alongside Amanda El-Dakhakhni . Before that, he conducted nuclear risk research for Rethink Priorities and longtermist macrostrategy research for Convergence Analysis , the Center on Long-Term Risk , and the Future of Humanity Institute , which is where we kn...

Ben Garfinkel is a Research Fellow at the University of Oxford and Acting Director of the Centre for the Governance of AI . In this episode we talk about: An overview of AI governance space, and disentangling concrete research questions that Ben would like to see more work on Seeing how existing arguments for the risks from transformative AI have held up and Ben’s personal motivations for working...

Anders Sandberg is a researcher, futurist, transhumanist and author. He holds a PhD in computational neuroscience from Stockholm University, and is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford. His research covers human enhancement, exploratory engineering , and 'grand futures' for humanity. This episode is a recording of a live interview at EA...

Rory Stewart is the President of GiveDirectly and a visiting fellow at Yale’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs . Before that, Rory was (amongst other things) a Member of Parliament in the UK, a Professor in Human Rights at Harvard, and a diplomat. He is also the author of several books and co-hosts the podcast The Rest Is Politics . In this episode, we talk about: The moral case for radically...