Prof. Scott Sumner is a well-known macroeconomist who spent more than 30 years teaching at Bentley University, and now holds an Emeritus Chair in monetary policy at George Mason University's Mercatus Center. He's best known for his blog, the Money Illusion, which sparked the idea of Market Monetarism and NGDP targeting.
I sat down with him at LessOnline 2025 to debate why his P(Doom) is pretty low. Where does he get off the Doom Train? đźš‚
00:00 Episode Preview
00:34 Introducing Scott Sumner
05:20 Is AGI Coming Soon?
09:12 Potential of AI in Various Fields
36:49 Ethical Implications of Superintelligent AI
41:03 The Nazis as an Outlier in History
43:36 Intelligence and Morality: The Orthogonality Thesis
49:03 The Risk of Misaligned AI Goals
01:09:31 Recapping Scott’s Position
Show Notes
Scott’s current blog, The Pursuit of Happiness:
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