There have been a number of news stories lately that seem straight out of science fiction. We've heard claims before Congress that the government is suppressing information regarding the existence of UFOs or aliens. There are computers that seem to think. And scientists in Korea claimed to have made an extraordinary breakthrough in the hunt for room temperature superconductivity. So how should we think about these things in terms of their potential impact on the economy? In addition to being a Nobel Prize winner and a columnist for the New York Times, economist Paul Krugman is also an avid science fiction fan. In fact, he has credited science fiction for his original interest in economics, even once writing a paper on interstellar trade. He joined us to discuss all of these things, and how to view them through the economics lens.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize winner in economics, professor at CUNY, and columnist at the New York Times. His academic work centers around international economics, economic geography, liquidity traps, and currency crises. This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast. If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/ai or connect with @lexfridman on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium, or YouTube where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on Apple Podcasts, follow on Spotify, or support it on Patreon. This episode is presented by Cash App. Download it (App Store, Google Play), use code “LexPodcast”.  Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. 00:00 – Introduction 03:44 – Utopia from an economics perspective 04:51 – Competition 06:33 – Well-informed citizen 07:52 – Disagreements in economics 09:57 – Metrics of outcomes 13:00 – Safety nets 15:54 – Invisible hand of the market 21:43 – Regulation of tech sector 22:48 – Automation 25:51 – Metric of productivity 30:35 – Interaction of the economy and politics 33:48 – Universal basic income 36:40 – Divisiveness of political discourse 42:53 – Economic theories 52:25 – Starting a system on Mars from scratch 55:11 – International trade 59:08 – Writing in a time of radicalization and Twitter mobs

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