Tom Davidson on how quickly AI could transform the world - 80,000 Hours

Search for:

Start here
Career guide
Research
- Problem profiles Find out about the world's biggest and most neglected problems.
  
  See all problem profiles →
  Top areas to work on
  
  Preventing an AI-related catastrophe
  
  Catastrophic pandemics
  
  Nuclear war
  
  Great power conflict
  
  Climate change
  
  Capacity building
  
  Building effective altruism
  
  Global priorities research
  
  Improving decision making
  
  Other promising areas
  
  Civilisation resilience
  
  Artificial sentience
  
  Promoting positive values
  
  Space governance
  
  Risks of stable totalitarianism
  
  Factory farming
  
  Easily preventable or treatable illness
  
  Wild animal suffering
  
  See all problem profiles →
- Career reviews Learn about high-impact career paths.
  
  See all our career reviews →
  Top skill sets for tackling global problems
  
  Political and bureaucratic skills
  
  Organisation-building
  
  Research
  
  Communicating ideas
  
  Programming
  
  Experience with China
  
  Specialist knowledge relevant to a top problem
  
  Our list of top high-impact career paths
  
  AI safety technical research and engineering
  
  AI governance and coordination
  
  Biorisk research, strategy, and policy
  
  Information security in high-impact areas
  
  Expert in AI hardware
  
  Helping build the effective altruism community
  
  China-related AI safety and governance
  
  Grantmaker
  
  Operations in high-impact organisations
  
  Research into global priorities
  
  Forecasting research and implementation
  
  More promising paths
  
  Be a founder
  
  Software engineering
  
  Journalism
  
  See more →
  
  How to build great career capital
  
  See our top recommendations →
  
  See all career reviews →
- Advanced series Our most important research findings.
  
  Introduction
  
  Your most important decision
  
  Foundations
  
  A definition of impact
  
  Longtermism
  
  Harmful jobs
  
  Global priorities
  
  Problem selection
  
  Existential risks
  
  Top problems list
  
  Contribution
  
  How to think about your contribution
  
  Effective solutions
  
  List of high-impact careers
  
  Personal fit
  
  Gut instinct
  
  Differences in productivity
  
  Comparative advantage
  
  Strategy
  
  Ambition
  
  Coordination
  
  Exploration
  
  Impact and satisfaction
  
  Accidental harm
  
  Read the full series →
- Planning & decision making Use our tools to make concrete plans.
  
  In-depth career planning series
  
  How to figure out what matters to you
  
  Which problems do you think are most pressing?
  
  How to generate longer-term paths
  
  Clarifying your strategic focus
  
  How to figure out your next step
  
  Planning to adapt
  
  How to investigate your uncertainties
  
  Putting your plan into action
  
  Summary of planning series
  
  See the full series →
  
  Other career planning tools
  
  Career guide planning template
  
  Annual career check-up
  
  Make good career decisions
  
  Make an immediate decision
  
  Improve your decision-making skills
- Browse all our content Pick a topic to explore or check out our most popular pieces.
  
  Selected topics
  
  Moral philosophy
  
  Career capital
  
  Job satisfaction
  
  Anonymous advice
  
  Unconventional advice
  
  Advocacy
  
  Existential risk
  
  Top-recommended careers
  
  See all topics →
  
  Top articles from outside our guides
  
  Best charities to donate to
  
  Misconceptions about effective altruism
  
  High-impact research questions
  
  What are your chances of getting elected to Congress, if you try?
  
  How many lives does a doctor save?
  
  What's the impact of voting?
  
  Advice for undergraduates
  
  All articles →
See all problem profiles →
Top areas to work on

Preventing an AI-related catastrophe

Catastrophic pandemics

Nuclear war

Great power conflict

Climate change

Capacity building

Building effective altruism

Global priorities research

Improving decision making

Other promising areas

Civilisation resilience

Artificial sentience

Promoting positive values

Space governance

Risks of stable totalitarianism

Factory farming

Easily preventable or treatable illness

Wild animal suffering

See all problem profiles →
See all our career reviews →
Top skill sets for tackling global problems

Political and bureaucratic skills

Organisation-building

Research

Communicating ideas

Programming

Experience with China

Specialist knowledge relevant to a top problem

Our list of top high-impact career paths

AI safety technical research and engineering

AI governance and coordination

Biorisk research, strategy, and policy

Information security in high-impact areas

Expert in AI hardware

Helping build the effective altruism community

China-related AI safety and governance

Grantmaker

Operations in high-impact organisations

Research into global priorities

Forecasting research and implementation

More promising paths

Be a founder

Software engineering

Journalism

See more →

How to build great career capital

See our top recommendations →

See all career reviews →
Introduction

Your most important decision

Foundations

A definition of impact

Longtermism

Harmful jobs

Global priorities

Problem selection

Existential risks

Top problems list

Contribution

How to think about your contribution

Effective solutions

List of high-impact careers

Personal fit

Gut instinct

Differences in productivity

Comparative advantage

Strategy

Ambition

Coordination

Exploration

Impact and satisfaction

Accidental harm

Read the full series →
In-depth career planning series

How to figure out what matters to you

Which problems do you think are most pressing?

How to generate longer-term paths

Clarifying your strategic focus

How to figure out your next step

Planning to adapt

How to investigate your uncertainties

Putting your plan into action

Summary of planning series

See the full series →

Other career planning tools

Career guide planning template

Annual career check-up

Make good career decisions

Make an immediate decision

Improve your decision-making skills
Selected topics

Moral philosophy

Career capital

Job satisfaction

Anonymous advice

Unconventional advice

Advocacy

Existential risk

Top-recommended careers

See all topics →

Top articles from outside our guides

Best charities to donate to

Misconceptions about effective altruism

High-impact research questions

What are your chances of getting elected to Congress, if you try?

How many lives does a doctor save?

What's the impact of voting?

Advice for undergraduates

All articles →
Job board
Podcasts
- The 80,000 Hours Podcast
- 80k After Hours
- The 80,000 Hours Career Guide
- Effective Altruism: An Introduction
- Effective Altruism: Ten Global Problems
- On Artificial Intelligence
Get 1-1 advice
Newsletter

New releases
All articles
About

Home Podcast All episodes Tom Davidson on how quickly AI could transform the world

Search for:

New releases
All articles
About

Tom Davidson on how quickly AI could transform the world

Copy and paste this URL into your WordPress site to embed

<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="8PzlKtcnaA"><a href="https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/tom-davidson-how-quickly-ai-could-transform-the-world/">Tom Davidson on how quickly AI could transform the&nbsp;world</a></blockquote><iframe sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" src="https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/tom-davidson-how-quickly-ai-could-transform-the-world/embed/#?secret=8PzlKtcnaA" width="600" height="400" title="&#8220;Tom Davidson on how quickly AI could transform the&nbsp;world&#8221; &#8212; 80,000 Hours" data-secret="8PzlKtcnaA" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" class="wp-embedded-content"></iframe><script type="text/javascript">
/**
 * WordPress inline HTML embed
 *
 * @since 4.4.0
 * @output wp-includes/js/wp-embed.js
 *
 * This file cannot have ampersands in it. This is to ensure
 * it can be embedded in older versions of WordPress.
 * See https://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/35708.
 */
(function ( window, document ) {
	'use strict';

	var supportedBrowser = false,
		loaded = false;

		if ( document.querySelector ) {
			if ( window.addEventListener ) {
				supportedBrowser = true;
			}
		}

	/** @namespace wp */
	window.wp = window.wp || {};

	if ( !! window.wp.receiveEmbedMessage ) {
		return;
	}

	/**
	 * Receive embed message.
	 *
	 * @param {MessageEvent} e
	 */
	window.wp.receiveEmbedMessage = function( e ) {
		var data = e.data;

		if ( ! data ) {
			return;
		}

		if ( ! ( data.secret || data.message || data.value ) ) {
			return;
		}

		if ( /[^a-zA-Z0-9]/.test( data.secret ) ) {
			return;
		}

		var iframes = document.querySelectorAll( 'iframe[data-secret="' + data.secret + '"]' ),
			blockquotes = document.querySelectorAll( 'blockquote[data-secret="' + data.secret + '"]' ),
			allowedProtocols = new RegExp( '^https?:$', 'i' ),
			i, source, height, sourceURL, targetURL;

		for ( i = 0; i < blockquotes.length; i++ ) {
			blockquotes[ i ].style.display = 'none';
		}

		for ( i = 0; i < iframes.length; i++ ) {
			source = iframes[ i ];

			if ( e.source !== source.contentWindow ) {
				continue;
			}

			source.removeAttribute( 'style' );

			/* Resize the iframe on request. */
			if ( 'height' === data.message ) {
				height = parseInt( data.value, 10 );
				if ( height > 1000 ) {
					height = 1000;
				} else if ( ~~height < 200 ) {
					height = 200;
				}

				source.height = height;
			}

			/* Link to a specific URL on request. */
			if ( 'link' === data.message ) {
				sourceURL = document.createElement( 'a' );
				targetURL = document.createElement( 'a' );

				sourceURL.href = source.getAttribute( 'src' );
				targetURL.href = data.value;

				/* Only follow link if the protocol is in the allow list. */
				if ( ! allowedProtocols.test( targetURL.protocol ) ) {
					continue;
				}

				/* Only continue if link hostname matches iframe's hostname. */
				if ( targetURL.host === sourceURL.host ) {
					if ( document.activeElement === source ) {
						window.top.location.href = data.value;
					}
				}
			}
		}
	};

	function onLoad() {
		if ( loaded ) {
			return;
		}

		loaded = true;

		var isIE10 = -1 !== navigator.appVersion.indexOf( 'MSIE 10' ),
			isIE11 = !!navigator.userAgent.match( /Trident.*rv:11\./ ),
			iframes = document.querySelectorAll( 'iframe.wp-embedded-content' ),
			iframeClone, i, source, secret;

		for ( i = 0; i < iframes.length; i++ ) {
			/** @var {IframeElement} */
			source = iframes[ i ];

			secret = source.getAttribute( 'data-secret' );
			if ( ! secret ) {
				/* Add secret to iframe */
				secret = Math.random().toString( 36 ).substr( 2, 10 );
				source.src += '#?secret=' + secret;
				source.setAttribute( 'data-secret', secret );
			}

			/* Remove security attribute from iframes in IE10 and IE11. */
			if ( ( isIE10 || isIE11 ) ) {
				iframeClone = source.cloneNode( true );
				iframeClone.removeAttribute( 'security' );
				source.parentNode.replaceChild( iframeClone, source );
			}

			/*
			 * Let post embed window know that the parent is ready for receiving the height message, in case the iframe
			 * loaded before wp-embed.js was loaded. When the ready message is received by the post embed window, the
			 * window will then (re-)send the height message right away.
			 */
			source.contentWindow.postMessage( {
				message: 'ready',
				secret: secret
			}, '*' );
		}
	}

	if ( supportedBrowser ) {
		window.addEventListener( 'message', window.wp.receiveEmbedMessage, false );
		document.addEventListener( 'DOMContentLoaded', onLoad, false );
		window.addEventListener( 'load', onLoad, false );
	}
})( window, document );
</script>

Copy and paste this code into your site to embed

Join our newsletter

Get weekly updates on our research, plus jobs and other opportunities to get involved.

Get 1-1 advice

Want to tackle a pressing global problem with your career?

Speak to an advisor

Our research

Start here
Career guide
List of world problems
List of careers
Advanced series
New releases
All our research

Future generations
Artificial intelligence
Anonymous advice
College advice

Take action

Find a job
Get 1-1 advice
Make a career plan

Follow us

Podcasts
80k After Hours
Newsletter
Twitter
Instagram
LinkedIn group
Facebook
TikTok
YouTube

About us

Why 80,000 Hours?
Meet the team
Our donors
What others say about us
Our mistakes
Our community
Translations of our content

80,000 Hours is an Effective Ventures project. Effective Ventures Foundation (UK) (EV UK) is a charity in England and Wales (with registered charity number 1149828, registered company number 07962181, and is also a Netherlands registered tax-deductible entity ANBI 825776867). Effective Ventures Foundation USA Inc. (EV US) is a section 501(c)(3) organization in the USA (EIN 47-1988398). EV UK and EV US are separate charities that collaborate closely under the “Effective Ventures” name.

Please contact us to suggest ideas, improvements, or corrections.

We do our best to provide useful information, but how you use the information is up to you. We don’t take responsibility for any loss that results from the use of information on the site. Please consult our full legal disclaimer and privacy policy. See also our cookie notice and adjust your .

© 2023 – all rights reserved. Please contact us if you wish to redistribute, translate, or adapt this work.