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Top areas to work on
Preventing an AI-related catastrophe
Catastrophic pandemics
Nuclear war
Great power war
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 →
Top skills to build early in your career
Policy and politics
Organisation-building
Research
Communicating ideas
Software and tech
Engineering
Experience with an emerging power
Expertise relevant to a top problem
See all our skills pages →
See all →
Our list of top high-impact career paths
AI safety technical research
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
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 →
Read the full series →
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 →
Career planning and decision making
How to make your career plan
All our other planning resources
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 →
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Author archive: The 80,000 Hours team

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All22
Key articles14
Blog posts6
Problem profiles2

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2023

December

Preventing catastrophic pandemics (Updated)
Problem profile

March

Improving decision making (especially in important institutions) (Updated)
Problem profile

2020

April

Preventing catastrophic pandemics (First published)
Problem profile

2017

September

Improving decision making (especially in important institutions) (First published)
Problem profile

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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.

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