Pigeon Hour

A podcast with Sarah Hastings-Woodhouse, who is on Substack , Twitter ( @littIeramblings ) and potentially elsewhere Topics discussed * Current thing: Fable gets export-controlled * Sarah defends government-enforced staged deployment * Non-misalignment misuse as an existential risk, maybe * Internal deployment (other current thing smart people talk about) * Sarah goes woke thinks that rationalists...

Episode main page: https://www.aaronbergman.net/p/tommy-crow A podcast with Tommy Crow, who is on Substack , Twitter ( @tommyjoancrow ), TikTok , and elsewhere , recorded irl after a recent EAGx conference in DC! Topics discussed - Tommy’s awake top surgery: how it happened, why almost every doctor said it was impossible - “Fighting the tube,” post-op torture, and the liability incentives that qui...

Summary In this episode, Aaron and Robi reunite to dissect the nuances of effective charitable giving. The central debate revolves around a common intuition: should a donor diversify their contributions across multiple organizations, or go “all in” on the single best option? Robi breaks down standard economic arguments against splitting donations for individual donors, while Aaron sorta kinda defe...

A great discussion between my two friends Max Alexander of Scouting Ahead and Robi Rahman (in response to a fundraiser that we wrapped up more than 13 months ago)Tweet with context: https://x.com/AaronBergman18/status/1999918243205779864?s=20 Transcript (AI-generated, likely imperfect) MAX Hello to the internet, maybe. ROBI Hey internet. MAX Um, I’m Max. ROBI I’m Robi. MAX Um, thank you all for do...

This is an audio readout of my recent post Utilitarians Should Accept that Some Suffering Cannot be “Offset” , also on the EA Forum Enjoy! Get full access to Aaron's Blog at www.aaronbergman.net/subscribe

Summary Join host Aaron with Jesse Smith, a self-described "unconventional EA" (Effective Altruist) who bridges blue-collar expertise with intellectual insight. Jesse recounts his wild early adventures in Canadian "bush camps," from planting a thousand trees daily as a teen to remote carpentry with helicopter commutes. Now a carpenter, HVAC technician, and business owner (Tay River Builders), he d...

Preparing for the Intelligence Explosion is a recent paper by Fin Moorhouse and Will MacAskill. * 00:00 - 1:58:04 is me reading the paper. * 1:58:05 - 2:26:06 is a string of random thoughts I have related to it I am well-aware that I am not the world's most eloquent speaker lol. This is also a bit of an experiment in getting myself to read something by reading it out loud. Maybe I’ll do another ep...

Please follow Arthur on Twitter and check out his blog ! Thank you for just summarizing my point in like 1% of the words -Aaron, to Arthur, circa 34:45 Summary (Written by Claude Opus aka Clong) * Aaron and Arthur introduce themselves and discuss their motivations for starting the podcast. Arthur jokingly suggests they should "solve gender discourse". * They discuss the benefits and drawbacks of h...

Intro Around New Years, Max Alexander , Laura Duffy , Matt and I tried to raise money for animal welfare (more specifically, the EA Animal Welfare Fund ) on Twitter. We put out a list of incentives (see the pink image below), one of which was to record a drunk podcast episode if the greater Very Online Effective Altruism community managed to collectively donate $10,000. To absolutely nobody’s surp...

* Follow ⁠Max on Twitter⁠ * And read his ⁠blog⁠ * Listen here or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts * RIP Google Podcasts 🪦🪦🪦 Summary In this philosophical and reflective episode, hosts Aaron and Max engage in a profound debate over the nature of consciousness, moral realism, and subjective experience. Max, a skeptic of moral realism, challenges Aaron on the objective moral distinction between worlds...

* Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts * Be sure to check out and follow Holly’s Substack and org Pause AI . Blurb and summary from Clong Blurb Holly and Aaron had a wide-ranging discussion touching on effective altruism, AI alignment, genetic conflict, wild animal welfare, and the importance of public advocacy in the AI safety space. Holly spoke about her background in evolutionary biology and how...

Listen on: * Spotify * Apple Podcasts * Google Podcasts Note: the core discussion on ethics begins at 7:58 and moves into philosophy of language at ~1:12:19 Daniel’s stuff: * AI X-risk podcast * The Filan Cabined podcast * Personal website and blog Blurb and bulleted summary from Clong This wide-ranging conversation between Daniel and Aaron touches on movies, business drama, philosophy of language...

Very imperfect transcript: bit.ly/3QhFgEJ Summary from Clong: The discussion centers around the concept of a unitary general intelligence or cognitive ability. Whether this exists as a real and distinct thing. Nathan argues against it, citing evidence from cognitive science about highly specialized and localized brain functions that can be damaged independently. Losing linguistic ability does not...

Summary (by Claude.ai ) This informal podcast covers a wide-ranging conversation between two speakers aligned in the effective altruism (EA) community. They have a similar background coming to EA from interests in philosophy, rationality, and reducing suffering. The main topic explored is reducing s-risks, or risks of extreme suffering in the future. Winston works for the Center for Reducing Suffe...

Summary/specific topics: - Stress Tests and AI Regulation: Nathan elaborates on the concept of stress tests conducted by central banks. These tests assess the resilience of banks to severe economic downturns and the potential for a domino effect if one bank fails. They believe that lessons from this process can be applied to AI regulation. Aaron agrees, but also highlights the need for a proactive...

- Follow Arjun on Twitter: https://twitter.com/panickssery - Read and subscribe to his blog: https://arjunpanickssery.substack.com - A mediocre transcription can be found at https://www.assemblyai.com/playground/transcript/6x5h1mcemt-bff1-40fc-a676-9b59c66985f0 🦆 👍 Get full access to Aaron's Blog at www.aaronbergman.net/subscribe

A transcript can be found at assemblyai.com/playground/transcript/6y7e7wz28c-30aa-4e83-ba4f-1bddf2e23dad Get full access to Aaron's Blog at www.aaronbergman.net/subscribe

For All Good's inaugural episode, we talked to Rob Wiblin and Keiran Harris of 80,000 Hours about how and why they produce their show. This episode first appeared on their new feed "80,000 Hours: After Hours" here: https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/80k-after-hours-philosophy-of-the-80000-hours-podcast/ Hope you find it interesting! Get full access to Aaron's Blog at www.aaronbergman.net/subs...

Hear EA Georgetown member Aaron Bergman's recent interview as a guest on the Narratives Podcast! During the show, host Will Jarvis talks to Aaron about a key way he thinks people go wrong when choosing a career, how society treats children, how bureaucracy works, whether the FDA should have to approve medications, his interest in psychopharmacology, and a whole lot more. Check out Narratives at na...

Welcome to All Good, a show by Georgetown Effective Altruism. Get full access to Aaron's Blog at www.aaronbergman.net/subscribe

Update Feb 12, 2023: Automated audio experiment with the Automator app no one uses Intro Back in 2016, I got my first job as a summer camp counselor. It was an outdoor adventure day camp, to which the six figure-making lawyers and consultants of Washington, D.C. sent their straight-A getting, lacrosse-playing children for a taste of the great outdoors. The campers ranged from four years of age to...