What we do
80,000 Hours gives analysis, info, and help to assist gifted folks transfer into careers that sort out the world’s most urgent issues.
Our strategic focus
What we offer
Our programmes assist us to realize our strategic focus. Every programme has a crew devoted to it. Right here’s a short abstract of what they do:
ProgrammeHigh-level goalWebsite and e-book Create an ever-evolving library of participating, informative pages to introduce customers to vital concepts, points, and profession paths, and assist customers take motion on pursuing high-impact careers, together with by our forthcoming e-book, 80,000 Hours: How one can Have a Fulfilling Profession that Does Good.
Discover the positioning → Take a look at the e-book →
Podcast (and accompanying weblog posts) Produce AI content material that informs and elevates pondering throughout all ranges of engagement, from instant sensible considerations to foundational governance questions. That features audio, video, and written content material, in addition to interviews, essays, and explainers.
Take a look at the present →
Video Produce excessive manufacturing worth, narrative-based, documentary-adjacent long-form movies about AI Danger.
Watch a video →
Profession Companies Advising: Assist folks determine how one can do essentially the most good with their careers by offering tailor-made recommendation by one-on-one conversations, connecting them with area consultants, and providing ongoing help.
Apply for 1-1 recommendation →
Headhunting: Join hiring managers with promising candidates to assist fill impactful roles with sturdy expertise. Job board: Curate and share impactful jobs and different alternatives.
Discover open jobs →
Assist groups
Along with our programmes, which create assets for our viewers, we even have the next cross-functional supporting groups:
Supporting teamHigh-level goalOperations Ops general: Assist construct the organisation and techniques that are wanted for 80,000 Hours to realize its objectives. Consists of: folks ops, recruiting, finance and governance, and enterprise ops. Strategic evaluation: Assist the organisation assess its affect and make related choices.Progress and advertising and marketing Run initiatives geared toward rising long-run, impact-adjusted engagement with 80,000 Hours’ concepts and programmes through natural and paid advertising and marketing and design.Workplace of the CEO Make sure the organisation is working effectively and within the appropriate route.
Why we exist
Our broader organisational identification
Our downside, imaginative and prescient, and mission — underlying our deal with making superior AI go effectively — is:
PROBLEM: Many gifted folks need to do good with their careers, however current recommendation hardly ever covers how to take action successfully, which means they’ve far much less affect than they may.VISION: Get extra gifted folks successfully tackling the world’s most urgent issues.MISSION: Present free analysis, info, and help to assist folks discover high-impact careers.
80,000 Hours is cause-neutral: our trigger prioritisation, technique, and actions would change if we not thought that making superior AI go effectively was essentially the most urgent world downside.
Why impact-oriented careers recommendation?
A lot of folks need to do good.Individuals spend an enormous fraction of their time on their profession, so it’s a powerful leverage level for having an affect (even in worlds the place AI analysis and improvement is automated within the subsequent few years).There are enormous variations in affect between careers, however current recommendation hardly ever makes comparisons of affect.We expect that offering profession recommendation that makes comparisons of affect can reliably result in extra folks tackling the largest issues extra successfully. It’s additionally uncared for and scalable.So, we expect it’s among the finest methods to make progress on urgent world issues.And we expect that now we have an empirical observe document of serving to folks transfer into paths we expect are extremely impactful.
How we take into consideration trigger prioritisation
Listed here are among the foundational assumptions we’re making when fascinated by how we will have the largest affect:
We care about complete wellbeing, thought of appropriately impartially — that’s, welfare of beings, no matter location or substrate, over the long run. (Learn extra about how we take into consideration social affect.)We expect contemplating the results of an motion or state of affairs in expectation is a vital and underrated solution to cope with uncertainty, although we don’t take anticipated worth calculations actually. (Learn extra about anticipated worth.)Bettering the prospects for all future generations is among the many most morally vital issues we will do. (Learn extra about longtermism.)We keep away from violating commonsense ethical constraints or naively maximising for selling a specific conception of ethical worth. (Study extra concerning the perils of naive maximisation)Given ethical and empirical uncertainty, we goal to think about a variety of views and prospects, and take the actions that appear finest on steadiness. (Learn extra about ethical uncertainty.)A key framework we use when assessing the pressingness of various world issues is to evaluate their significance, tractability, and neglectedness. (Learn extra about our determination framework.)
Why we’re centered on making superior AI go effectively
Along with the foundational assumptions above, now we have empirical views which trigger us to focus specifically on dangers (and alternatives) stemming from superior AI:
AI progress is constant quickly. We expect that seemingly by 2040, and doubtlessly a lot sooner, AI techniques will exist that may do essentially the most economically priceless cognitive duties (scientific analysis, designing new applied sciences and merchandise, working companies, and so forth).Extremely succesful AI techniques may quickly remodel the world and pose challenges we aren’t ready for. For instance, they may make it simpler than ever for people to launch profitable coups, and to design extraordinarily highly effective weapons. Or they may have objectives of their very own, and search to disempower humanity so as to obtain them.The stakes are doubtlessly existential. Superior AI may deliver unprecedented prosperity, nevertheless it may additionally result in humanity going extinct or dropping the power to form its personal future.The problem is uncared for relative to its significance: only some thousand folks work on it in comparison with the thousands and thousands engaged on standard social points.It’s tractable now: legal guidelines, norms, and establishments round AI are nonetheless being fashioned, which implies folks have a chance to form them.
How we work
Cultural values
At current, our high cultural values are:
Bold long-term impactA modest, scientific mindsetOpenness and honestyFostering a quick, progressive, AI-focused inside tradition.
At a excessive stage, how will we obtain our strategic focus and mission?
Develop views on which interventions and roles matter most for making superior AI go effectively.Attain folks by participating content material, advertising and marketing, and word-of-mouth.Talk why and how one can make superior AI go effectively — introducing folks to a very powerful concepts and serving to them see how they’ll contribute, particularly through their careers.Get folks into roles that assist make superior AI go effectively by profession recommendation, headhunting, and our job board.Assist folks keep updated to allow them to modify their plans because the world modifications.
How programme technique is ready at 80k
80,000 Hours has an organisation-wide technique, and particular person programme methods move from and contribute to this. Programme methods are set on the programme stage, however the CEO works with every programme to pick out a technique and plan that contributes to the organisational technique. The CEO is finally accountable for deciding whether or not to begin, spin out, or shut down programmes.
Centralised constructions
Along with the cross-functional supporting programmes, now we have some centralised constructions to help the programmes. For instance:
Programmes collaborate rather more intently than separate organisations would, comparable to by:Fortnightly senior management crew conferences to coordinate on priorities, collaboration, and organisation-wide questionsCross-team help, shared insurance policies, a shared model, and feedbackSome concrete examples: anybody may give suggestions on advising calls or podcast episodes; programmes cross-promote one another; hiring committees should include one cross-team member; and so forth.Influence analysis is completed centrally (and typically additionally by particular person programmes). We use it to supply a suggestions loop that enables us to reply strategic questions, enhance the standard of our merchandise, and observe whether or not we’re succeeding in our mission.Learn a abstract of our historic affect right here.
Target market
Programmes set their very own particular goal audiences, however broadly we goal:
English-speaking college students and professionals all over the world, sometimes aged 18–45, who’re unusually excessive in potential and openness to participating with questions with a scope-sensitive, impartially-altruistic, collaborative, and truth-seeking mindset.
Presently, the web site largely targets the youthful finish of this age vary, whereas our profession providers, video, and studio groups attempt to span the entire vary. We additionally consider LLMs that serve this viewers as in our target market.
Strategic assumptions informing our alternative of target market
The distribution of individuals’s profession affect is usually heavy-tailed in a very powerful areas.Individuals who find yourself having quite a lot of affect over the course of their profession usually tend to have quite a lot of potential when younger, and are typically open to participating with questions in a method that’s scope-sensitive, impartially-altruistic, collaborative, and makes use of a scout mindset.We are able to appeal to people who find themselves very excessive on these standards and interact them.Youthful folks are typically extra keen to vary careers and do uncommon issues.Older folks can usually contribute to our urgent issues ahead of youthful folks.When deciding between participating with particular person customers (e.g. on profession providers), we prioritise based mostly on how a lot affect we expect we will have by serving to them have a better affect profession.
Relationship with Efficient Altruism (EA)
We think about ourselves a part of the EA ecosystem, however we goal to behave on our personal views and enchantment to our a lot wider target market. Our present viewers can be a lot wider than the EA neighborhood. (Learn extra about our relationship with efficient altruism.)
