The World Can Be Better

Frances Lorenz and Toby Tremlett
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Society & Culture

The World Can Be Better is a podcast about how different people are trying to improve the world, whether through technology, global health, poverty reduction, philanthropy, improving the lives of farmed animals, addressing gender-based violence, and beyond. Each episode is a relaxed conversation with someone doing ambitious, thoughtful work. The show is designed to be accessible, framed as a broad intro to a real-world problem and approaches to solving it, with minimal jargon. theworldcanbebetter.substack.com

Episodes

  1. How do you open a health centre for $4000? — with Nick Laing

    Jun 16

    How do you open a health centre for $4000? — with Nick Laing

    We’re on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and more, just search! In this episode, we interview Nick Laing. Nick is the co-founder and CEO of OneDay Health, a charity that starts up self-sustaining health centres in northern Uganda. You might also know him from the Effective Altruism Forum, where he’s written some great posts on a ton of topics — including water chlorination’s surprising impact on reducing child mortality, the possible effectiveness of menstrual cups as a health and wellbeing intervention, and what NGOs in Africa can do better. We discuss all of this, and more, in the episode. If you enjoy it, please like, or leave a review! It helps the podcast show up for other listeners. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theworldcanbebetter.substack.com

    1h 25m
  2. Will there be an intelligence explosion? — Fin Moorhouse

    Jun 5

    Will there be an intelligence explosion? — Fin Moorhouse

    In this episode, me (Toby) and Frances speak to researcher, Fin Moorhouse. Fin is a Research Fellow at Forethought, an organisation that researches how we might thrive under extremely fast AI progress. As part of his work, he also hosts the Forethought podcast ForeCast, where you can hear more about the ideas we’ll discuss today. Previously, he co-hosted the Hear This Idea podcast, worked at Longview Philanthropy, the Future of Humanity Institute, and much more. You can find out Fin’s whole professional history, along with just about everything he’s read and listened to via his handsomely designed website. We talk to Fin mostly about three things: * The Better Futures series — where he argues, with Will MacAskill, that it may be as good, or better, to work on increasing the value of the future, rather than increasing the odds humanity survives. * The intelligence explosion, the idea that rapidly improving AI could accelerate technological and social progress. * And finally, Fin’s recent essay, no ghost in the machine, arguing for a non-realist view of consciousness, which I (Toby) would highly recommend reading. Subscribe to get the transcript, with links (and a graph!) in the next post. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theworldcanbebetter.substack.com

    1h 36m

  3. Apr 30

    Is AI drinking your water? – with Andy Masley

    In this episode, I talk to Andy Masley, writer of The Weird Turn Pro on Substack. Andy has become known online as the "AI water guy" for his pushback on the popular narrative that AI is draining our water. He recently found a major mistake in the bestselling book Empire of AI, where a claim that a Chilean data center used a thousand times as much water as the surrounding community turned out to be a unit conversion error.In this episode we talk about how he found the mistake, the strange experience of being called both a Luddite and a Big AI shill, why he thinks the AI environment narrative has gone off track, and his actual views on AI, including why he takes the case for concern seriously. We also get into effective altruism, his path from teaching high school physics to full-time writing, and the power of online writing! Andy's Substack: andymasley.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theworldcanbebetter.substack.com

    1h 25m

  4. 08/21/2025

    Should you be worried about AI? — Steven Adler

    In this first episode, I make an AI expert (Steven Adler) explain to me why some people are so worried about artificial intelligence and what we can do about it. Steven Adler is a former safety researcher at OpenAI, the frontier lab behind ChatGPT. Steven worked there for four years on safety and policy, including leading the Dangerous Capability Evaluations team. He now writes for his Substack, Clear‑Eyed AI, about the development of very capable systems and how to make AI go better. In this episode, Steven walks through the risks surrounding advanced artificial intelligence: (1) concerning behaviours we already see in current models; (2) plausible future risks; and (3) concrete ways people, technical or not, can work on the problem. I really enjoyed this conversation and I’m excited for everyone to listen! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theworldcanbebetter.substack.com

    50 min
  • 4 Episodes

About

The World Can Be Better is a podcast about how different people are trying to improve the world, whether through technology, global health, poverty reduction, philanthropy, improving the lives of farmed animals, addressing gender-based violence, and beyond. Each episode is a relaxed conversation with someone doing ambitious, thoughtful work. The show is designed to be accessible, framed as a broad intro to a real-world problem and approaches to solving it, with minimal jargon. theworldcanbebetter.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Frances Lorenz and Toby Tremlett
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    4
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Frances Lorenz and Toby Tremlett
  • Show Website
    The World Can Be Better