80,000 Hours Podcast

If you genuinely believe that humanity could be wiped out by AI or a pandemic, what is the appropriate amount of fear to feel?
“As much as possible” can seem like the only reasonable answer. If the world is on fire, surely feeling calm just means you haven’t internalised the situation. When you’re trying to prevent human extinction or end factory farming, taking a weekend off can feel morally indefensible.
But fear is an alarm designed to provoke short bursts of drastic action, not a state humans can productively inhabit for months or years. Guilt turns out not to be such a great engine for productivity, either. So what is the best way to sustain motivation to work on the world’s most pressing problems in the long term?
Host Luisa Rodriguez and guest Spencer Greenberg tackle this question from many angles — talking to therapists, running a survey of people working on existential risks, and pulling relevant lessons from Spencer’s new book, The 12 Levers: The Complete Psychological Toolkit for Improving Your Life. Drawing on all these sources, they put together a plan for how to make an impact without grinding yourself to a pulp.
Check out Spencer's new book: https://80k.info/12-levers
Links to learn more, video, and full transcript: https://80k.info/sg26
This episode was recorded on June 12 and 15, 2026.
Chapters:
Cold open (00:00:00)
Spencer is back — for a 5th time! (00:00:40)
Managing the psychological toll of working on existential risks (00:01:00)
Luisa and Spencer surveyed people working on existential risk (00:04:23)
How to sustain your motivation (00:11:13)
Why you shouldn’t read the news (00:23:54)
Why guilt isn’t an optimal source of motivation (00:36:28)
Breaking the boom-and-bust cycle of burnout (00:44:41)
Specialness and saviour complex (00:51:46)
If you're certain we're doomed, you're overconfident (00:57:36)
We're all (probably) going to die (01:03:50)
When loved ones think you're weird (01:17:21)
How to balance impact and personal wellbeing (01:28:20)
What people report actually helps (01:53:49)
Spencer read 100 self-help books: here's what works (01:59:40)
Our production team includes:
Video editors: Josh Alward, Dominic Armstrong, Ollie Bignell, Andrés Escobar, Jasper Luithlen, Milo McGuire, Luke Monsour, and Simon Monsour
Producers: Elizabeth Cox and Nick Stockton
Coordination and support: Katy Moore and Lou Moran
Music: CORBIT

Many AI researchers believe mass job displacement is coming — and some even think there’s a chance their technology will kill everyone. But they’re building it anyway. Writer and journalist Jasmine Sun has been documenting why from the inside.
Jasmine describes her work as an “anthropology of disruption.” She’s embedded herself in Silicon Valley’s AI subcultures — attending the parties and conferences, conducting off-the-record interviews — to understand the beliefs of the small group of people shaping this technology.
Some of her findings are unsettling. Asked what advice they’d give a normal 17-year-old, almost every AI researcher said the same thing: “I have no idea… It’s a really scary time. I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of jobs for them left.”
Their motives for building advanced AI are varied: a mix of optimism for humanity, techno-determinism, and a desire to secure their own future in the face of a possible “permanent underclass.” A few go even further, actually hoping for a world where machines — rather than humans — are running the show.
When the room can’t even agree on whether humans should stay in control, building a consensus on how to build AI safely gets much harder.
Beyond Silicon Valley, Jasmine’s also tracking the rise of “AI populists,” who see AI as the latest example of corporate elites concentrating their power at the expense of everyone else. In the US, populist sentiment about AI has mostly manifested in protests and votes against data centres. But sometimes, it has escalated into violence: a molotov cocktail thrown at Sam Altman’s house, and open fire on the home of a politician who’d backed a data centre. Jasmine thinks public anger will keep finding an outlet, one way or another, until people feel like they’ll actually share in AI’s gains.
In this interview with host Zershaaneh Qureshi, Jasmine Sun takes us inside the multifarious factions on AI’s bleeding edge. They also discuss:
How “doomer” became the lowest-status label in Silicon Valley, and what that means for AI safety
Why the AI industry’s PR strategy has failed, and what it would take to rebuild public trust
What’s under the surface of the Chinese public’s much more positive response to AI
Jasmine’s reasons to be cautiously hopeful: it’s an unusually high-leverage time to work on AI safety, with policymakers and philanthropists hungry for good ideas
This episode was recorded on June 4, 2026.
Links to learn more, video, and full transcript: https://80k.info/jasmine

Want to get up to speed on AI? We’ve got a crash course of 10 of our podcast episodes designed to help you get to grips with transformative AI — particularly if you’re new to the topic — and what you can do to help shape its trajectory: https://80000hours.org/AIPod
Chapters:
Cold open (00:00:00)
Who’s Jasmine Sun? (00:00:30)
Escaping the permanent underclass (00:01:22)
Jasmine’s “anthropology of disruption” (00:14:02)
Vice signalling in Silicon Valley (00:18:46)
AI populism will shape 2028 (00:28:11)
Does AI populism distract from safety? (00:40:20)
Americans don’t want Silicon Valley’s utopia (00:44:06)
Why the Chinese public embraces AI (00:52:52)
AI hype and the journalist’s dilemma (00:59:04)
There’s never been a better time to work in AI safety (01:03:07)
Our production team includes:
Video editors: Josh Alward, Dominic Armstrong, Jasper Luithlen, Milo McGuire, Luke Monsour, Simon Monsour, and Andrés Escobar
Producers: Elizabeth Cox and Nick Stockton
Coordination and support: Katy Moore and Lou Moran
Music: CORBIT

In a post-AGI world, can a country without access to frontier AI even be considered sovereign anymore?
Anton Leicht says once frontier AI becomes a core economic input, the countries that own it will pull further and further ahead. Everyone else stays a customer… or worse. Maybe the dominant power wants your land, or a military base, or a resource. Without economic leverage, there’s very little you could do about it.
Anton — Carnegie fellow and writer of the blog Threading the Needle — thinks middle powers should band together and build their own frontier models.
He’s costed it out: something like $500 billion over four years for a band of allied democracies. That’s not absurd money for the G7 minus the US. The problem is you’d be asking treasuries to take on sovereign debt for a speculative venture with no business case, wide open to US coercion and domestic backlash.
So despite its promise, Anton’s verdict is that it probably won’t happen. His backup is for countries to ask themselves: if intelligence becomes abundant, what stays scarce?
Upstream, that’s everything that feeds the supply chain: ASML’s lithography machines, chipmaking, exclusive training data — all of it gets more valuable as AI does.
Downstream, “a country of geniuses in a data centre” still can’t cure cancer without someone building the production plants and running the trials. The Europeans, Japanese, and South Koreans are good at exactly these real-world bottlenecks.
It’s an imperfect fix. The US would still hold more leverage, plus an incentive to re-industrialise and cut you out. The prize is avoiding the worst outcomes: a gradual but irreversible decline, waiting to be either annexed or discarded as the US and China race ahead.
In this episode, Anton and host Tom Reed look at what middle powers should start doing now to keep a seat at the table.
Learn more, video, and full transcript: https://80k.info/AL
This episode was recorded on June 19, 2026.
Chapters:
Cold open (00:00:00)
Who’s Anton Leicht? (00:00:43)
Most countries face bleak AI futures (00:01:06)
How middle powers can strike AI deals (00:06:10)
The $500 billion AI moonshot (00:12:16)
Would the US crush allied AI? (00:24:54)
When to launch the AI moonshot (00:31:56)
Why AI dominance is forever (00:35:45)
Is AI dependence catastrophic? (00:37:42)
What’s left to sell in an AI-dominated world? (00:42:45)
Policies to avoid mass AI-layoffs (00:47:47)
Who really governs Anthropic? (01:08:29)
Why “pausing superintelligence” fails (01:10:52)
Is American AI monopoly safe? (01:21:08)
Explaining AGI to the world (01:28:40)
Is Anton bullish or bearish on Germany? (01:31:05)
Our production team includes:
Video editors: Josh Alward, Dominic Armstrong, Ollie Bignell, Andrés Escobar, Jasper Luithlen, Milo McGuire, Luke Monsour, and Simon Monsour
Producers: Elizabeth Cox and Nick Stockton
Coordination and support: Katy Moore and Lou Moran
Camera operator: Jeremy Chevillotte
Music: CORBIT

Six years ago, aged just 15, Sneha Revanur founded the AI advocacy nonprofit Encode AI — back when AI felt like a niche issue. Now the world’s caught up with her, and she’s ready to share everything she’s learned about the politics of AI.
Encode has grown from a grassroots youth organisation to spearheading an unlikely coalition of AI-exposed groups — family-first conservatives, grieving mothers, Hollywood actors, and AI safety researchers — with the strength to take on $125m-funded anti-regulation lobbyists.
So far, Encode’s strategy of taking many experimental swings has netted major victories (including California’s frontier AI safety bill, SB-53, and New York’s RAISE Act) as well as some disappointing setbacks.
Going up against Big Tech hasn’t been easy. In 2025, OpenAI subpoenaed Encode’s general counsel at his home, with a sheriff’s deputy arriving while he was having dinner with his wife. The fallout went viral, resulting in more attention than Encode had ever experienced — and Sneha was forced to decide how hard to push back against a company she’d need to negotiate with for years to come.
In today’s conversation, Zershaaneh Qureshi interrogates some of Encode’s strategic moves. The pair discuss all the above, plus:
How the AI industry’s crypto-inspired anti-regulation strategy is not “AGI-pilled”
Why AI advocacy doesn’t have to be held back by the slow pace of policy
How mutual trust can hold together the unlikeliest of political allies
Advice for aspiring AI advocates — including how to balance political persuasion with rigorous reasoning 
Due to technical issues, this episode was recorded across two days (May 26 and 28, 2026) and spliced together.
Links to learn more, video, and full transcript: https://80k.info/SR
Chapters:
Cold open (00:00:00)   
Who’s Sneha Revanur? (00:00:32)   
Sneha’s awakening to AI’s deeper risks (00:01:16)   
“If you do everything, you will win” (00:04:04)   
Influencing politics from the outside (00:06:39)   
The challenge of grassroots (00:11:16)   
Mums, musicians, and conservatives vs Big Tech (00:14:21)   
How vetoed bills can still provide wins (00:19:31)   
OpenAI’s subpoena, served at dinner (00:27:33)   
How AI money plays in politics (00:37:19)   
Easy wins vs high-upside bets (00:43:25)   
Advice for aspiring AI advocates (00:48:03)   

Our production team includes:
Video editors: Josh Alward, Dominic Armstrong, Jasper Luithlen, Milo McGuire, Luke Monsour, Simon Monsour, and Andrés Escobar
Producer: Nick Stockton and Elizabeth Cox
Coordination and support: Katy Moore and Lou Moran
Music: CORBIT

Intergalactic war is probably billions of years away — yet physics can already tell us how it ends. And strangely that conclusion is relevant to decisions people have to make today.
In this video, Rob Wiblin walks through a fascinating analysis from researcher Beren Millidge that uses known physics — no wormholes or faster-than-light travel — to identify the only three weapons that could work at an intergalactic scale.
We then unpack how to best defend against each.
The upshot is that at the intergalactic scale, violence is a losing proposition.
If so, the universe is most likely to settle into a stable patchwork where each galaxy belongs to whoever got to it first. Which would mean that what humanity does over the next few centuries could permanently decide which slice of the cosmos belongs to Earth-originating life — and whether our very existence turns out to be a good thing, or a bad one.

Learn more, video, and full transcript: https://80k.info/war-in-space
This episode was recorded on March 2, 2026.
Chapters:
Let's talk intergalactic war in space (00:00)
The three best weapons for intergalactic warfare (01:43)
How to defend against an attack from space (07:50)
The defender’s surprising advantage (10:00)
What this means for us (11:52)
Video editor: Nick Perlman
Producers: Elizabeth Cox and Nick Stockton
Coordination and support: Katy Moore and Lou Moran
Camera operator: Dominic Armstrong