Phil Trammell is an Oxford PhD student in economics and research associate at the Global Priorities Institute. Phil is one of the smartest person I know, when considering the intersection of the long-term future and economic growth. Funnily enough, Phil was my roomate, a few years ago in Oxford, and last time I called him he casually said that he had written an extensive report on the econ of AI. A few weeks ago, I decided that I would read that report (which actually is a literature review), and that I would translate everything that I learn along the way to diagrams, so you too can learn what’s inside that paper. The video covers everything from MacroEconomics 101 to self-improving AI in about 30-ish diagrams.
Outline:
- 00:00 Podcast intro
- 01:19 Phil's intro
- 08:58 What's GDP
- 13:42 Decreasing growth
- 15:40 Permanent growth increase
- 19:02 Singularity of type I
- 22:58 Singularity of type II
- 23:24 Production function
- 24:10 The Economy as a two-tubes factory
- 25:09 Marginal Products of labor/capital
- 27:48 Labor/capital-augmenting technology
- 29:13 Technological progress since Ford
- 38:18 Factor payments
- 41:30 Elasticity of substitution
- 48:34 Production function with substitution
- 53:18 Perfect substitutability
- 54:00 Perfect complements
- 55:44 Exogenous growth
- 59:56 How to get long-run growth
- 01:05:40 Endogenous growth
- 01:10:40 The research feedback parameter
- 01:17:35 AI as an imperfect substitute for human labor
- 01:25:25 A simple model for perfect substitution
- 01:33:09 AI as a perfect substitute
- 01:36:07 Substitutability in robotics production
- 01:40:43 OpenAI automating coding
- 01:44:38 Growth impacts via impacts on savings
- 01:46:44 AI in task-based models of good productions
- 01:53:26 AI in technology production
- 02:03:55 Limits of the econ model
- 02:09:00 Conclusion
