Expression of Interest: Podcast Host

By · Published March 14th, 2025 ·

Help shape the most important conversation of our time

We’re looking for someone exceptional to join 80,000 Hours as a Podcast Host, helping us build a media platform that properly covers recursively self-improving AGI and its implications.

Why this matters

Frontier AI systems are developing rapidly, with capabilities progressing much faster than most expected even a few years ago.

If development continues at its current pace we could see an ‘intelligence explosion’ in which AI takes over AI research and rapidly self-improves, starting in as little as 2-7 years.

This is the defining issue of our time and decisions made in the next decade could shape humanity’s long-term future in profound ways.

Yet the public conversation around AGI remains completely inadequate. Mainstream sources neglect the issue entirely for the most part. When AGI is discussed, it’s often covered superficially and fails in one of various ways:

  • naive optimism and hype
  • reflexive dismissiveness
  • focusing only on immediate issues like job displacement or copyright violations
  • uncritically accepting narratives from actors with strong financial interests in the industry.

The extremely profound implications of developing AI, then AGI, and then superintelligence are basically ignored.

We believe there’s a critical opportunity to fill this gap by scaling up our podcast from occasional in-depth interviews to a more comprehensive media platform with multiple weekly pieces covering AGI-related developments, risks, governance, and alignment efforts in a substantive way.

Our goal would be to have consistent coverage of:

  1. all the key categories of risks associated with AGI
  2. the main approaches people are taking to reduce them
  3. major updates in the AI ecosystem (e.g. milestones in AI progress, policy changes at AI labs, new AI-related legislation)

We expect AI progress to eventually force the issue into the mainstream as the technology becomes capable of doing all or almost all the things human workers can do on a computer.

By becoming a trusted source of information about AGI now — before others rush into the space — we could have substantial influence when people are looking to learn and make sense of what is going on later on.

And offering sophisticated analysis about where AI is going to take us as a society over the next few years puts us in a better position by:

  1. Informing, influencing and preparing key decision-makers in industry, academia, and policy
  2. Expanding the community of people taking these issues seriously and working to address them
  3. Shaping how society collectively thinks about and prepares for increasingly capable AI systems

You can learn more about the above perspective in our interviews with Will MacAskill and Carl Shulman, and in our article on Preventing an AI-related Catastrophe.

What you’ll be building

As a host of the show, you’d work directly with existing hosts Rob Wiblin and Luisa Rodriguez to produce the best content available to help people understand AI, AGI and the intelligence explosion. We would cover both upsides and downsides, and help people form accurate expectations about the future, and a sufficiently sophisticated model that they can see ways to help steer things in a positive direction.

The goal is to make:

  • In-depth interviews with leading AI researchers, policymakers, and strategists in both audio and video
  • Regular analysis of new developments and research findings
  • Accessible content that still maintains technical accuracy

With a larger team we expect to branch into other content formats including voice essays and a Substack, usually tied into interviews.

You’d initially be coached by Rob and Luisa, gaining more editorial autonomy over time with demonstrated success.

Components of the role

We would design the role to fit the applicant, but probable responsibilities include:

  • Tracking the AGI space and thereby deciding what topics and messages to prioritise, and who to interview
  • Conducting background research and preparation for interviews
  • Interviewing guests on video, potentially at our London studio
  • Contributing to the content-level editing of episodes to ensure clarity and narrative flow
  • Selecting engaging episode titles, thumbnails, and crafting compelling opening clips to attract and retain audience attention
  • Learning about the audience and what they actually need from us, and channeling feedback into content improvements
  • Help shape the voice, style, and approach of our expanded platform

Why might this be a good fit for you?

Nobody will have all of these traits, but if you have more than 10 that’s a great sign, and the more boxes you tick the better:

  • Take AI development and its potential implications seriously, and want to do something about it
    • Ideally already track at least some part of the AI/AGI situation, be that applications, research, policy or social impacts
    • As a bonus, have professional experience in some part of the broader AI ecosystem
  • Research and communication
    • Have an eye for the most important considerations or cruxes in a messy area, avoiding getting bogged down in details
    • Sometimes come up with and share insightful ‘takes’ about issues you follow
    • Are able to take a complex issue and communicate the core thing people need to understand in a way that most can follow
    • Have a sense of what content could be both engaging and important
  • Personality
    • Are comfortable directly disagreeing with people, including experts
    • Are curious and not dogmatic
    • Are willing to be wrong in public, and not too thrown off by criticism (both justified and unjustified)
    • Are comfortable, or could become comfortable, being on video
    • Have some form of charisma the audience will connect with — be that via expertise and intelligence, entertainment and humour, high energy, warmth or personal connection
    • Your personal conduct would make you a good public ambassador for 80,000 Hours
  • Have experience with at least one of:
    • content creation, whether text, video or audio
    • research or research communication
    • content marketing or being personally engaging on social media
  • Consume a lot of audio or video podcasts — or secondarily Substacks, AI/EA Twitter, or video clips
  • Are organized and capable of independently managing podcast projects, preparing content, structuring episodes without much oversight.
  • Can locate in either London, the San Francisco / Bay Area, or DC (though remote is an option)

What we offer

  • The salary will vary based on experience and the responsibilities you take on, and will be calculated according to a formula that is transparent to all primary staff at 80,000 Hours which factors in experience, level of responsibility and performance.
    • A candidate with a medium level of experience and proficiency would most likely start on between £80k-100k. A candidate with extensive demonstrated skill at this sort of work could earn over £100k.
  • Staff can work flexible hours. We encourage staff to work whatever schedule (consistent with full time status) will allow them to be most personally effective.
  • Location
    • We prefer people to either work in the San Francisco / Bay Area, in order to be connected with other organisations working on AGI issues, or to work in our London offices, getting the benefits of being in-person with most of the team.
    • A third-best option is to locate in Washington DC, which will be a centre of AI policy and governance.
    • We are also open to remote work in some cases.
    • We can sponsor UK visas. For US-based candidates, visa sponsorship may be possible through our Employer of Record.
  • The start date of the role is flexible, but we would expect you to start during 2025 and prefer you to start approximately as soon as you’re available.

Our benefits

  • The option to use 10% of your time for self-development
  • 25 days of paid holiday, plus bank holidays
  • Pension scheme / retirement plan with employer contributions
  • Private medical insurance
  • Long-term disability insurance
  • Up to 14 weeks of fully paid parental leave
  • Childcare allowance for children under 5
  • Coverage of work-related expenses like travel to conferences and office equipment
  • £5,000 annual mental health support allowance
  • £5,000 annual self-development budget
  • Shower facilities, a small gym, and free food provided if you work at our London office

If you’re interested in the role, please fill out this form. While there’s no hard deadline for getting in touch, we encourage you to submit your materials before May 6. We’ll reach out to discuss a potential role if we think you’re a particularly great fit.