80000 hours

Judy Backhouse
Screen shot of the opening page at 80000hours.org. Text reads 'We'll help you find a role that shapes the future.

What is 80000 hours?

80000hours.org is a career guidance web site aimed at highly educated people who want to do satisfying work that has a positive impact on the world. Highly skilled individuals will work for around 80 000 hours over the course of their career. This web site provides information about what the most pressing problems in the world are and how to have the most impact on those problems. It helps individuals to find careers that suit their aptitudes and interests, and offers advice on the necessary skills and knowledge, as well as how to gain access to these careers. 

It also has some very thoughtful articles on how to make the most impact in the world, including some counter-intuitive ideas about who has the most impact, how to make an impact no matter what job you do and skills that will benefit you in almost any job.

Screen shot of 80000hours.org showing some of the top skills that the recommend: policy and political skills, organisation-building skills and research skills.

How I use 80000 hours

I am not looking for a career, but I use this site to understand what the most pressing problems in the world are. Under the resources menu they have a list of (what they consider) the top global problems and links to information on what the problem is, the scale of the problem, the extent to which it is being worked on (neglectedness) and how easy it is to solve (solvability).

I find this a very useful quick guide to global issues as well as how they might be tackled. I use the information in my fiction as well as in articles I write on ideas to improve the world. 

Screen shot from 80000hours.org showing a segment of the web site headed 'What are the world's most pressing problems? Underneath it lists Power-seeking AI systems, Extreme power concentration, Engineered pandemics, Great power conflict and Factory farming.

Why I use 80000 hours

The information on the web site is free and well referenced so that I can go deeper into any of the issues if I want to. It's well curated, making it easy to find relevant information. Also, i'm interested in what might make the world a better place.

Screen shot from 80000hours.org showing a list of the resources they offer

Why I trust 80000 hours

As far as I can tell, the research conducted is good and impartial. All claims are referenced.

80000 hours is a London-based non-profit organisation, funded by donations. The approach is based on effective altruism, a philosophy and social movement that advocates making rational and impartial decisions about where to focus effort to resolve the world's problems. It's not something I subscribe to wholeheartedly, since I think rationality has limits, but I think the intentions are good.

My reservations about 80000 hours

I'm not sure I agree with their criteria for selecting issues. They focus on scope, neglectedness and solvability to identify which issues, if tackled, could have the greatest benefit. These criteria surface some ideas that seem quite unlikely to me and even verge on fear-mongering, like defending ourselves from individuals who might want to engineer deadly viruses.

There is also the possibility that naming these as the 'top problems' undervalues many of the other really important problems that people around the world face. This is an elitist project, run by elites, for people who have lots of choices. For the majority of people who don't have the same luxury of choice, everyone can make an impact for the better on problems that may appear just as big in their own contexts.

Conclusion

Were I younger and starting out on my career, I would certainly use this site as one input into my decision-making. Aside from career choices, it contains some useful contributions to the complex choices we face as a species and how to allocate resources to solve them. Their ongoing research into current challenges is illuminating.