Tyler Cowen — The #1 bottleneck to AI progress is humans

Jan 20, 2025

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The Lunar Society

Key Takeaways

While the AIs will be smart and conscientious, they will still face human bottlenecks, such as bureaucracies and committees at universities
We may not notice AI productivity gains on shorter timeframes: Even if they only boost economic growth by 0.5% per year, that is a massive productivity gain over 30-40 years!
“There are going to be bottlenecks all along the way. It’s going to be a tough slug – like the printing press, like electricity. The people who study diffusion of new technologies never think there will be rapid takeoff.” – Tyler Cowen
- Opposition to AI will only increase as the technology starts to change what the world looks like
There is increasing variance in the human distribution: Young people at the top are doing much better and are more impressive than they were in earlier times. The very bottom of the distribution is also getting better. But the “thick middle” is getting worse.
Since humans are an input “other than the AI”, then humans will rise in marginal value, even if we will have to learn to do different things
On Popularity and Progress: There is a danger that as a thing becomes more popular, at the margin it becomes much worse
The Tyler Cowen Investment Philosophy: Buy and hold, diversify, hold on tight, make sure you have some cheap hobbies and can cook
Tech diffusion is universally pretty slow: While people in the Bay Area are the smartest, most dynamic, and most ambitious, they tend to overvalue intelligence
On progress: War should always be the main concern during a period of rapid technological progress; throughout history, when new technologies emerge, they are turned into instruments of war – and terrible things can happen

Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.org

I interviewed Tyler Cowen at the Progress Conference 2024. As always, I had a blast. This is my fourth interview with him – and yet I’m always hearing new stuff.

We talked about why he thinks AI won't drive explosive economic growth, the real bottlenecks on world progress, him now writing for AIs instead of humans, and the difficult relationship between being cultured and fostering growth – among many other things in the full episode.

Thanks to the Roots of Progress Institute (with special thanks to Jason Crawford and Heike Larson) for such a wonderful conference, and to FreeThink for the videography.

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I’m grateful to Tyler for volunteering to say a few words about Jane Street. It's the first time that a guest has participated in the sponsorship. I hope you can see why Tyler and I think so highly of Jane Street. To learn more about their open rules, go to janestreet.com/dwarkesh.

Timestamps

(00:00:00) Economic Growth and AI

(00:14:57) Founder Mode and increasing variance

(00:29:31) Effective Altruism and Progress Studies

(00:33:05) What AI changes for Tyler

(00:44:57) The slow diffusion of innovation

(00:49:53) Stalin's library

(00:52:19) DC vs SF vs EU

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