For decades, US allies have slept soundly under the protection of America’s overwhelming military might. Donald Trump — with his threats to ditch NATO, seize Greenland, and abandon Taiwan — seems hell-bent on shattering that comfort.

But according to Hugh White — one of the world's leading strategic thinkers, emeritus professor at the Australian National University, and author of Hard New World: Our Post-American Future — Trump isn't destroying American hegemony. He's simply revealing that it's already gone.

These highlights are from episode #218 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast: Hugh White on why Trump is abandoning US hegemony – and that’s probably good, and include:

• America has been all talk, no action when it comes to China and Russia (00:39)
• How Trump has significantly brought forward the inevitable (05:14)
• Westerners always underestimate what China can achieve (10:32)
• We live in a multipolar world; we've got to make a multipolar world work (15:47)
• Trump is half-right that the US was being ripped off (19:06)
• Europe is strong enough to take on Russia, except it lacks nuclear deterrence (22:27)
• A multipolar world is bad, but better than the alternative: nuclear war (28:50)
• Taiwan's position is essentially indefensible — and the rest of the world needs to be honest with them about that (33:24)
• AGI may or may not overcome existing nuclear deterrence (39:16)

These aren't necessarily the most important or even most entertaining parts of the interview — so if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode!

And if you're finding these highlights episodes valuable, please let us know by emailing podcast@80000hours.org.

Highlights put together by Ben Cordell, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong

AI models today have a 50% chance of successfully completing a task that would take an expert human one hour. Seven months ago, that number was roughly 30 minutes — and seven months before that, 15 minutes.

These are substantial, multi-step tasks requiring sustained focus: building web applications, conducting machine learning research, or solving complex programming challenges.

Today’s guest, Beth Barnes, is CEO of METR (Model Evaluation & Threat Research) — the leading organisation measuring these capabilities.

These highlights are from episode #217 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast: Beth Barnes on the most important graph in AI right now — and the 7-month rule that governs its progress, and include:

• Can we see AI scheming in the chain of thought? (00:00:34)
• We have to test model honesty even before they're used inside AI companies (00:05:48)
• It's essential to thoroughly test relevant real-world tasks (00:10:13)
• Recursively self-improving AI might even be here in two years — which is alarming (00:16:09)
• Do we need external auditors doing AI safety tests, not just the companies themselves? (00:21:55)
• A case against safety-focused people working at frontier AI companies (00:29:30)
• Open-weighting models is often good, and Beth has changed her attitude about it (00:34:57)

These aren't necessarily the most important or even most entertaining parts of the interview — so if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode!

And if you're finding these highlights episodes valuable, please let us know by emailing podcast@80000hours.org.

Highlights put together by Ben Cordell, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong

When you have a system where ministers almost never understand their portfolios, civil servants change jobs every few months, and MPs don’t grasp parliamentary procedure even after decades in office — is the problem the people, or the structure they work in?

Political journalist Ian Dunt studies the systemic reasons governments succeed and fail. And in his book How Westminster Works …and Why It Doesn’t, he argues that Britain’s government dysfunction and multi-decade failure to solve its key problems stems primarily from bad incentives and bad processes.

These highlights are from episode #216 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast: Ian Dunt on why governments in Britain and elsewhere can’t get anything done – and how to fix it, and include:

• Rob's intro (00:00:00)
• The UK is governed from a tiny cramped house (00:00:08)
• Replacing political distractions with departmental organisation (00:02:58)
• The profoundly dangerous development of "delegated legislation" (00:06:42)
• Do more independent-minded legislatures actually lead to better outcomes? (00:09:08)
• MPs waste much of their time helping constituents with random complaints (00:12:50)
• How to keep expert civil servants (00:15:44)
• Unlikely heroes in the House of Lords (00:18:33)
• Proportional representation and other alternatives to first-past-the-post (00:22:02)

These aren't necessarily the most important or even most entertaining parts of the interview — so if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode!

And if you're finding these highlights episodes valuable, please let us know by emailing podcast@80000hours.org.

Highlights put together by Ben Cordell, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong