80,000 Hours - Wikipedia
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Wikipedia article on 80,000 Hours, a nonprofit that advises people on high-impact careers, with AI safety identified as a top priority area. Relevant to AI safety as it describes a major organization directing talent toward AI safety and governance work.
Metadata
Importance: 52/100wiki pagereference
Summary
80,000 Hours is a London-based nonprofit founded in 2011 that researches and advises on high-impact careers, currently prioritizing AI safety and governance as the most pressing global problem. It applies effective altruism principles to career choice, evaluating problems by scale, neglectedness, and solvability. The organization advocates longtermism and directs talented graduates toward careers addressing existential and catastrophic risks.
Key Points
- •80,000 Hours identifies AI safety and governance as the most pressing global problem people should direct their careers toward.
- •Career advice is grounded in effective altruism: measuring marginal impact, replaceability, and personal fit rather than direct good done.
- •The organization advocates longtermism, prioritizing interventions with long-term effects like AI safety, pandemic prevention, and nuclear risk reduction.
- •Funded primarily by Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna's Coefficient Giving, with over $20M in cumulative donations.
- •Provides career guidance through articles, a podcast (since 2017), one-on-one advising, and a book by co-founder Benjamin Todd.
Cited by 1 page
| Page | Type | Quality |
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| 80,000 Hours | Organization | 45.0 |
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Career research organisation
80,000 Hours Founded October 2011 ; 14 years ago  ( 2011-10 ) [ 1 ] Founders
William MacAskill
Benjamin Todd
Type Nonprofit organisation Focus Social impact research and advice Origins Oxford , England Region served Worldwide Product Free, evidence-based career advice Website 80000hours .org
80,000 Hours is a London-based nonprofit organisation that conducts research on which careers have the largest positive social impact and provides career advice based on that research. The organisation's name refers to the typical amount of time someone spends working over a lifetime. [ 2 ] [ 3 ]
80,000 Hours advises people to build valuable skills and to apply them to the most pressing global problems. Currently, it believes these are mainly issues that could arise from the development of artificial intelligence . [ 4 ] [ 5 ]
The book 80,000 Hours by Benjamin Todd features advice based on the philosophy of effective altruism plus personal fulfillment. [ 6 ] The organisation has also hosted a podcast since 2017, featuring speakers from a variety of careers and perspectives on such philosophy, [ 7 ] as well as a YouTube channel. [ 8 ] Articles in the vein of the book and podcast have been posted regularly on the 80,000 Hours website since its founding, [ 9 ] which also provides advice through one-on-one sessions.
Principles
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According to 80,000 Hours, some careers aimed at doing good are far more effective than others. They evaluate problems people can focus on solving in terms of their "scale", "neglectedness", and "solvability", while career paths are rated on their potential for immediate social impact, on how well they set someone up to have an impact later on, and on personal fit with the reader. [ 10 ]
80,000 Hours emphasises that the positive impact of choosing a certain occupation should be measured by the amount of additional good that is created as a result of that choice, not by the amount of good done directly. This approach takes into account the concept of replaceability, acknowledging that if one does not take a particular job, someone else likely will, which could alter the net impact of the career choice. [ 11 ] [ 12 ] The organization also questioned some popular career advice, such as "follow your passion". They argued that most people's passions tend to be in areas like sports and arts, which offer limited career opportunities, recommending instead to focus on developing skills in meaningful work, as passion typically develops as a result of mastery and purpose rather than being a prerequisite. [ 13 ] [ 12 ]
80,000 Hours assesses both direct interventions, such as scientific research and policy advocacy, and indirect approaches like earning to give (earning a high salary in a conventiona
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