Tyler Cowen: prediction

Transcript context

…All right. “How would you rate the current development of your previous ideas that you’ve popularized on the blog? How have subsequent events vindicated or called into question ideas such as The Great Stagnation, Average Is Over, state capacity libertarianism?” That’s from G.K. The Great Stagnation I think was seen as radical when I stated it in 2011. It’s now widely considered to have been true. I think it’s over. Not everyone thinks it’s over. I think with AI and advances in biomedical science, it ended a few years ago. I think that one turned out very well, basically. Average Is Over is a story in the works. Will artificial intelligence boost or lower income inequality? That, we don’t know yet. The predictions I made in my book Average Is Over, that AI would be the next big thing and it would all be about how well can you work with AI — that’s done very, very well. I think I deserve more credit for those predictions, in fact. State capacity libertarianism, I still hear the phrase all the time. Like, Vivek once reached out to me a few months ago, and he said, “Oh, I love state capacity libertarianism. Let’s meet and talk about this.” Now, we’ll see what comes of that. When I wrote that post, I was convinced this was going nowhere, and it’s still a thing. I’m not saying it’s a thing that will succeed. I think as libertarianism more narrowly has scattered and diffused, it’s one of the strands that’s still alive. I’m hopeful. Another question: “You are in a sense both an insider and an outsider to the econ profession. What parts of the profession do you feel are most underrated and most overrated?”…

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