Tyler Cowen

They were too pessimistic, I would say, but they understood the pessimism intrinsic in diminishing returns in a way that people in the Bay Area do not, and it's better for them that they don't know it, but if you're just trying to inject truth into their veins rather than ambition, diminishing returns is a very important idea.

Yeah, I said they were too pessimistic, but they understood something about the logic of diffusion.

where if they could see AI today, I don't think they would be so blown away by, oh, you know, I read Malthus, Ricardo would say, Malthus and I used to send letters back and forth.

We talked about diminishing returns.

This will be nice, it'll extend the frontier, but it's not gonna solve all our problems.

Well, Smith thought it would be.

I think compared to his time, we have much more individuality, most of all in the Bay Area.

That's a good thing.

I worry, the future with AI, that a kind of demoralization will set in, in some areas.

I think there'll be full employment pretty much forever.

That doesn't worry me.

But what we will be left doing,

what exactly it will be and how happy it will make us.

Again, I don't have pessimistic expectations.

I just see it as a big change.

I don't feel I have a good prediction.

And if you don't have a good prediction, you should be a bit wary and just like, oh, okay, we're gonna see.

But, you know, some words of caution are merited.

Well, I haven't interviewed that many scientists, like Ed Boyden would be one, Richard Prom, the ornithologist from Yale.

Those are very hard preps.