Podcasts are emerging as one of the key mediums for getting expert timely opinions and news about artificial intelligence. For example, EconTalk (Russ Roberts) has featured some of the most famous voices in AI discourse:
EconTalk: Eliezer Yudkowsky on the Dangers of AI (2023)
EconTalk: Marc Andreessen on Why AI Will Save the World
EconTalk: Reid Hoffman on Why AI Is Good for Humans
If you would like to engage in a discussion about these topics in May, please sign up for the session I am leading. It is free, but you do need to sign up for the Liberty Fund Portal.
The event consists of two weeks when you can do a discussion board style conversation asynchronously with other interested listeners and readers. Lastly, there is a zoom meeting to bring everyone together on May 21. You don’t have to do all three of the parts.
Further description for those who are interested:
Timeless: Artificial Intelligence: Doom or Bloom?
with Joy Buchanan
Time: May 5-9, 2025 and May 12-16, 2025
How will humans succeed (or survive) in the Age of AI?
Russ Roberts brought the world’s leading thinkers about artificial intelligence to the EconTalk audience and was early to the trend. He hosted Nick Bostrom on Superintelligence in 2014, more than a decade before the world was shocked into thinking harder about AI after meeting ChatGPT.
We will discuss the future of humanity by revisiting or discovering some of Robert’s best EconTalk podcasts on this topic and reading complementary texts. Participants can join in for part or all of the series.
Week 1: May 5-9, 2025
An asynchronous discussion, with an emphasis on possible negative outcomes from AI, such as unemployment, social disengagement, and existential risk. Participants will be invited to suggest special topics for a separate session that will be held on Zoom on May 21, 2025, 2:00-3:30 pm EDT.
Required Readings: EconTalk: Eliezer Yudkowsky on the Dangers of AI (2023)
EconTalk: Erik Hoel on the Threat to Humanity from AI (2023) with an EconTalk Extra Who’s Afraid of Artificial Intelligence? by Joy Buchanan
“Trurl’s Electronic Bard” (1965) by Stanisław Lem.
In this prescient short story, a scientist builds a poetry-writing machine. Sound familiar? (If anyone participated in the Life and Fate reading club with Russ and Tyler, there are parallels between Lem’s work and Vasily Grossman’s “Life and Fate” (1959), as both emerged from Eastern European intellectual traditions during the Cold War.)
Optional Readings: “Technological Singularity” by Vernor Vinge. Field Robotics Center, Carnegie Mellon U., 1993.
“‘I am Bing, and I Am Evil’: Microsoft’s new AI really does herald a global threat” by Erik Hoel. The Intrinsic Perspective Substack, February 16, 2023.
“Situational Awareness” (2024) by Leopold Aschenbrenner
Week 2: May 12-16, 2025
An asynchronous discussion, emphasizing the promise of AI as the next technological breakthrough that will make us richer.
Required Readings: EconTalk: Marc Andreessen on Why AI Will Save the World
EconTalk: Reid Hoffman on Why AI Is Good for Humans
Optional Readings: EconTalk: Tyler Cowen on the Risks and Impact of Artificial Intelligence (2023)
“ChatGPT Hallucinates Nonexistent Citations: Evidence from Economics” (2024)
Joy Buchanan with Stephen Hill and Olga Shapoval. The American Economist, 69(1), 80-87.
What the Superintelligence can do for us (Joy Buchanan, 2024)
Dwarkesh Podcast “Tyler Cowen – Hayek, Keynes, & Smith on AI, Animal Spirits, Anarchy, & Growth”
Week 3: May 21, 2025, 2:00-3:30 pm EDT (Zoom meeting)
Pre-registration is required, and we ask you to register only if you can be present for the entire session. Readings are available online. We will get to talk in the same zoom room!
Required Readings: Great Antidote podcast with Katherine Mangu-Ward on AI: Reality, Concerns, and Optimism
Additional readings will be added based partially on previous sessions’ participants’ suggestions
Optional Readings: Rediscovering David Hume’s Wisdom in the Age of AI (Joy Buchanan, EconLog, 2024)
“Professor tailored AI tutor to physics course. Engagement doubled” The Harvard Gazette. 2024.
Please email Joy if you have any trouble signing up for the virtual event.
Economist Writing Every Day 
One thought on “Join Joy to discuss Artificial Intelligence in May 2025”