William MacAskill: Effective Altruism | Lex Fridman Podcast #84

William MacAskill is a philosopher, ethicist, and one of the originators of the effective altruism movement. His research focuses on the fundamentals of effective altruism – the use of evidence and reason to help others by as much as possible with our time and money, with a particular concentration on how to act given moral uncertainty. He is the author of Doing Good Better – Effective Altruism and a Radical New Way to Make a Difference. He is a co-founder and the President of the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) that encourages people to commit to donate at least 10% of their income to the most effective charities. He co-founded 80,000 Hours, a non-profit that provides research and advice on how you can best make a difference through your career.

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EPISODE LINKS:
William’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/willmacaskill
William’s Website: http://www.williammacaskill.com/
Doing Good Better (book): https://amzn.to/2UsMRDj
GiveWell: https://www.givewell.org/
80,000 Hours: https://80000hours.org/

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Clips playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41

OUTLINE:
0:00 – Introduction
2:39 – Utopia – the Long Reflection
10:25 – Advertisement model
15:56 – Effective altruism
38:28 – Criticism
49:02 – Biggest problems in the world
53:40 – Suffering
1:01:40 – Animal welfare
1:09:23 – Existential risks
1:19:08 – Existential risk from AGI

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