Ideas for high impact careers beyond our priority paths (Article)

Today’s release is the latest in our series of audio versions of our articles. In this one, we go through some more career options beyond our priority paths that seem promising to us for positively influencing the long-term future. Some of these are likely to be written up as priority paths in the future, or wrapped into existing ones, but we haven’t written full profiles for them yet—for example policy careers outside AI and biosecurity policy that seem promising from a longtermist perspective. Others, like information security, we think might be as promising for many people as our priority paths, but because we haven’t investigated them much we’re still unsure. Still others seem like they’ll typically be less impactful than our priority paths for people who can succeed equally in either, but still seem high-impact to us and like they could be top options for a substantial number of people, depending on personal fit—for example research management. Finally some—like becoming a public intellectual—clearly have the potential for a lot of impact, but we can’t recommend them widely because they don’t have the capacity to absorb a large number of people, are particularly risky, or both. If you want to check out the links in today’s article, you can find those here. Our annual user survey is also now open for submissions. Once a year for two weeks we ask all of you, our podcast listeners, article readers, advice receivers, and so on, so let us know how we've helped or hurt you. 80,000 Hours now offers many different services, and your feedback helps us figure out which programs to keep, which to cut, and which to expand. This year we have a new section covering the podcast, asking what kinds of episodes you liked the most and want to see more of, what extra resources you use, and some other questions too. We're always especially interested to hear ways that our work has influenced what you plan to do with your life or career, whether that impact was positive, neutral, or negative. That might be a different focus in your existing job, or a decision to study something different or look for a new job. Alternatively, maybe you're now planning to volunteer somewhere, or donate more, or donate to a different organisation. Your responses to the survey will be carefully read as part of our upcoming annual review, and we'll use them to help decide what 80,000 Hours should do differently next year. So please do take a moment to fill out the user survey before it closes on Sunday (13th of September). You can find it at 80000hours.org/survey Get this episode by subscribing: type 80,000 Hours into your podcasting app. Or read the linked transcript. Producer: Keiran Harris. Audio mastering: Ben Cordell. Transcriptions: Zakee Ulhaq.