Lex Fridman interviews William MacAskill, 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. This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast.

Time Index:

• 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