I’m not just doing this to plug my own event. It’s also about the only thing on my mind after spending the week leading and moderating this timely discussion.
If you like to read and discuss with smart people, then you can make a free account in the Liberty Fund Portal. If you listen to this podcast over the weekend: Marc Andreessen on Why AI Will Save the World (2023) you will be up to speed for our asynchronous virtual debate room on Monday May 12.
Keeping in mind the stark contrast between this and the doomers we discussed in the past week, here is Marc’s argument in a nutshell:
“The reason I’m so optimistic is because we know for a fact–as sort of one of the most subtle conclusions in all of science–we know for a fact that in human affairs, intelligence makes everything better. And, by “everything,” I mean basically every outcome of human welfare and life quality that essentially we can measure.”
When it’s put that way, it’s hard to disagree. Who would want less intelligence?
See more details on all readings and the final Zoom meeting in my previous post.
Another interesting bit by Marc:
“By the way, look: there’s lots of work happening that’s not being published in papers. And so, the other part of what we do is to actually talk to the practitioners.”
Even though it might seem strange to look to podcasts instead of published books and papers for cutting edge information, it really does seem like the story was told in human voices for the past 3 years. Dwarkesh was probably the best, but Tyler and Russ deserve credit as well for bringing these conversations out of the closed rooms and into the public domain.
Economist Writing Every Day 