Steve Levitt

And so in support of Possibilianism, maybe a better name could be in order, you wrote a book called Sum, that's S-U-M. So it's Sum, 40 Tales from the Afterlives.

When I heard about the book, I saw the subtitle and I thought, I have zero interest in reading a book about the afterlife. I totally misunderstood what the book was about. And then I certainly didn't understand that some was Latin.

People are super excited right now about these generative AI models, the large language models. What's your take on it?

Do you think that it is a solvable problem to give these models, a theory of mind, a model of the world? Yeah.

If we were to come back in 100 years, what do you think would be most different? I know that's a hard prediction to make, but what do you see as transforming most in the areas you work in?

There was a point in time among economists that there was a lot of optimism that we could really nail macroeconomics, inflation and interest rates and whatnot. And we could really understand how the system worked. And I think there's been a real step back from that. The view now is, look, it's enormous complex system. And we've really, I guess, given up in the short run.

Are you at all worried that's where we're going with the brain?

They say as you get older, it's important to keep challenging your brain by learning new things, like a foreign language. I can't say I found learning German to be all that much fun, and I definitely have not turned out to be very good at it. So I've been looking for a new brain challenge, and I have to say, I find echolocation very intriguing. How cool would it be to be able to see via sound?

I suspect, though, that my aptitude for echolocation will be on par with my aptitude for German. So if you see me covered in bruises, you'll know why. If you want to learn more about David Eagleman's ideas, I really enjoyed a couple of his mini books, like Live Wired, which talks about his brain research, and some 40 Tales from the Afterlives, his book of speculative fiction.

David, you got your quick time going?