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Dwarkesh Podcast / episode intelligence

Tyler Cowen — Hayek, Keynes, & Smith on AI, animal spirits, anarchy, & growth

31 Jan 2024 48 published claims 2 attributable people
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Speakers in the public record

Dwarkesh PatelTyler Cowen

Claim mix

belief 29uncertainty 7evaluation 6prediction 3observation 1commitment 1preference 1

Evidence policy

Every row below preserves an exact excerpt. Identified speakers are linked; unresolved voices are labeled and excluded from people counts.

Claim ledger

The useful parts, with receipts.

48 published records

01 / observation

” Now, it’s a fascinating idea that investment is irrational, or most investment throughout history has been irrational. But when we think today about the fact that active investing exists for winners’ curse like reasons, VCs probably make, on average, less returns than the market, there’s a whole bunch of different examples you can go through, right?

“” Now, it’s a fascinating idea that investment is irrational, or most investment throughout history has been irrational. But when we think today about the fact that active investing exists for winners’ curse like reasons, VCs probably make, on average, less returns than the market, there’s a whole bunch of different examples you can go through, right?”
Speaker
Dwarkesh Patel
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

04 / belief

Maybe they overly value autonomy when they ought to just get a job with a relatively stable company. So there, part of the thesis is correct, and I doubt if there’s really big social returns to whatever those people do, even if they could make a go of it.

“Maybe they overly value autonomy when they ought to just get a job with a relatively stable company. So there, part of the thesis is correct, and I doubt if there’s really big social returns to whatever those people do, even if they could make a go of it.”
Speaker
Tyler Cowen
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

07 / uncertainty

For some reason, currency holdings aren’t large enough, there’s some kind of financial repression, I don’t know, but it’s very hard to explain why some of these countries, but not others, go crazy with the printing press.

“For some reason, currency holdings aren’t large enough, there’s some kind of financial repression, I don’t know, but it’s very hard to explain why some of these countries, but not others, go crazy with the printing press.”
Speaker
Tyler Cowen
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

08 / belief

I wonder if you’re doing enough of that when it comes to AI, where I think you have really interesting thoughts about GPD, five-level stuff, but somebody with your sort of polymathic understanding of different fields, if you just extrapolate out these trends, it seems like you might have a lot of interesting thoughts about what might be possible with something much further down the line.

“I wonder if you’re doing enough of that when it comes to AI, where I think you have really interesting thoughts about GPD, five-level stuff, but somebody with your sort of polymathic understanding of different fields, if you just extrapolate out these trends, it seems like you might have a lot of interesting thoughts about what might be possible with something much further down the line.”
Speaker
Dwarkesh Patel
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

09 / commitment

Another quote from Keynes, I guess I won’t read the whole quote in full, but basically says, over time, as investments, markets get more mature, more and more of equities are held basically by passive investors, people who don’t have a direct hand in the involvement of the enterprise, and the share of the market that’s passive investment now is much bigger.

“Another quote from Keynes, I guess I won’t read the whole quote in full, but basically says, over time, as investments, markets get more mature, more and more of equities are held basically by passive investors, people who don’t have a direct hand in the involvement of the enterprise, and the share of the market that’s passive investment now is much bigger.”
Speaker
Dwarkesh Patel
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

11 / belief

There’s Mill’s own upbringing, which was quite strict and by current standards, oppressive, but apparently extremely effective in making Mill smart. So I think Mill very much thought that kids should be induced to learn the classics, but he also stressed they needed free play of the imagination in a way that he drew from German and also British Romanticism, and he wanted some kind of synthesis of the two.

“There’s Mill’s own upbringing, which was quite strict and by current standards, oppressive, but apparently extremely effective in making Mill smart. So I think Mill very much thought that kids should be induced to learn the classics, but he also stressed they needed free play of the imagination in a way that he drew from German and also British Romanticism, and he wanted some kind of synthesis of the two.”
Speaker
Tyler Cowen
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

17 / belief

Relatedly, I think, a couple of years ago, Paul Schlemming had an interesting paper that if you look from 1311 to now, interest rates have been declining.

“Relatedly, I think, a couple of years ago, Paul Schlemming had an interesting paper that if you look from 1311 to now, interest rates have been declining.”
Speaker
Dwarkesh Patel
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

20 / belief

Most of it’s quite interesting, but his ability to see things from multiple perspectives, I think, was in part stemming from the fact that he wrote a lot about many different topics, like French history, ancient Greece.

“Most of it’s quite interesting, but his ability to see things from multiple perspectives, I think, was in part stemming from the fact that he wrote a lot about many different topics, like French history, ancient Greece.”
Speaker
Tyler Cowen
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

21 / belief

I’m not sure what those numbers going up mean, what a GPT seven would look like, or how much smarter it could get. I think people make too many assumptions there.

“I’m not sure what those numbers going up mean, what a GPT seven would look like, or how much smarter it could get. I think people make too many assumptions there.”
Speaker
Tyler Cowen
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

22 / belief

There was some collusion, not enough bidding, but it was mostly competing for attention. So I think the real risk protection agencies’ side of network-based collusion is through banking systems, where you have clearinghouses and payments networks, and to be part of it, the clearinghouse, in the absence of legal constraint, can indeed help everyone collude.

“There was some collusion, not enough bidding, but it was mostly competing for attention. So I think the real risk protection agencies’ side of network-based collusion is through banking systems, where you have clearinghouses and payments networks, and to be part of it, the clearinghouse, in the absence of legal constraint, can indeed help everyone collude.”
Speaker
Tyler Cowen
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

26 / belief

I just think the risk, not that everyone dies, I think that’s quite low, but that we retreat to some kind of pretty chaotic form of like, medieval Balkans existence with a much lower population.

“I just think the risk, not that everyone dies, I think that’s quite low, but that we retreat to some kind of pretty chaotic form of like, medieval Balkans existence with a much lower population.”
Speaker
Tyler Cowen
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

28 / belief

When you say there’ll be uncertainties, I think you made this argument when you were responding to Alex Epstein on fossil future, where you said uncertainties also extend out into the domain where there’s a bad outcome or much bigger outcome than you’re anticipating.

“When you say there’ll be uncertainties, I think you made this argument when you were responding to Alex Epstein on fossil future, where you said uncertainties also extend out into the domain where there’s a bad outcome or much bigger outcome than you’re anticipating.”
Speaker
Dwarkesh Patel
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

32 / belief

Regarding the internet writing mode of thinking, I would like to see more economists and research scientists raised on it, but the number may be higher than we think.

“Regarding the internet writing mode of thinking, I would like to see more economists and research scientists raised on it, but the number may be higher than we think.”
Speaker
Tyler Cowen
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

33 / belief

Sure. So before we get into his actual views, I think his career is a tremendous white pill in the sense that he writes The Road to Serfdom in 1944 when Nazi Germany and Soviet Union are both prominent players.

“Sure. So before we get into his actual views, I think his career is a tremendous white pill in the sense that he writes The Road to Serfdom in 1944 when Nazi Germany and Soviet Union are both prominent players.”
Speaker
Dwarkesh Patel
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

34 / belief

My former colleague Gordon Tullock wrote a very interesting book on the economics of ant societies and animal societies and very often they obey human-like principles, or more accurately, humans obey non-human, animal-like principles. So I suspect it’s fairly universal and depends less on quote unquote human nature than we sometimes like to suggest.

“My former colleague Gordon Tullock wrote a very interesting book on the economics of ant societies and animal societies and very often they obey human-like principles, or more accurately, humans obey non-human, animal-like principles. So I suspect it’s fairly universal and depends less on quote unquote human nature than we sometimes like to suggest.”
Speaker
Tyler Cowen
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

35 / belief

You talk in the book about how Mill is very concerned about the quality and the character development of the population. But when we think about the fact that somebody like him was elected to the parliament at the time, the greatest thinker who’s alive is elected to government, and it’s hard to imagine that could be true in today’s world.

“You talk in the book about how Mill is very concerned about the quality and the character development of the population. But when we think about the fact that somebody like him was elected to the parliament at the time, the greatest thinker who’s alive is elected to government, and it’s hard to imagine that could be true in today’s world.”
Speaker
Dwarkesh Patel
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

38 / belief

I’m not saying the humanitarian outcome is a good one, but in terms of the global economy, I think markets are thinking rationally about it, though the rational forecast, of course, is often wrong.

“I’m not saying the humanitarian outcome is a good one, but in terms of the global economy, I think markets are thinking rationally about it, though the rational forecast, of course, is often wrong.”
Speaker
Tyler Cowen
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

39 / evaluation

Yeah. So, related to that, I think in the meaning of competition, he makes the point that the most interesting part of markets is when they go from one equilibrium to another, because that’s where they’re trying to figure out what to produce and how to produce it better and so on, and not the equilibriums themselves.

“Yeah. So, related to that, I think in the meaning of competition, he makes the point that the most interesting part of markets is when they go from one equilibrium to another, because that’s where they’re trying to figure out what to produce and how to produce it better and so on, and not the equilibriums themselves.”
Speaker
Dwarkesh Patel
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

41 / evaluation

And the Hayekian argument doesn’t always work, because the signal you have is of the current price. And that’s not telling you how high are the inframarginal values if you get, say, cut off from being able to buy vaccines from India, because you’re at the bottom of the queue.

“And the Hayekian argument doesn’t always work, because the signal you have is of the current price. And that’s not telling you how high are the inframarginal values if you get, say, cut off from being able to buy vaccines from India, because you’re at the bottom of the queue.”
Speaker
Tyler Cowen
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

42 / prediction

So we need to restructure our whole discourse about tacit knowledge in some new, different way. But I agree, these networks of AIs, even before, like GPT eleven, they’re going to be super productive, but they’re still going to face bottlenecks.

“So we need to restructure our whole discourse about tacit knowledge in some new, different way. But I agree, these networks of AIs, even before, like GPT eleven, they’re going to be super productive, but they’re still going to face bottlenecks.”
Speaker
Tyler Cowen
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

45 / evaluation

There’s a lot of dimensions to prices other than just, oh, this newspaper costs $4, the terms on which it’s advertised. So markets work so well because people are solving this complex multidimensional problem and the price really is not a sufficient statistic the way it is in an Arrow-Debreu.

“There’s a lot of dimensions to prices other than just, oh, this newspaper costs $4, the terms on which it’s advertised. So markets work so well because people are solving this complex multidimensional problem and the price really is not a sufficient statistic the way it is in an Arrow-Debreu.”
Speaker
Tyler Cowen
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

47 / evaluation

I think just being good-natured helps, and helping a lot of people helps. And Turing, I’m a huge fan of, wrote a paper on him with Michelle Dawson, but it’s not obvious that he was a very good diplomat, and it seems he very likely was a pretty terrible diplomat, and that might be feeding into this difference.

“I think just being good-natured helps, and helping a lot of people helps. And Turing, I’m a huge fan of, wrote a paper on him with Michelle Dawson, but it’s not obvious that he was a very good diplomat, and it seems he very likely was a pretty terrible diplomat, and that might be feeding into this difference.”
Speaker
Tyler Cowen
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

48 / prediction

The challenge might be competing against AI, and it doesn’t have to be that AI does it better than you or I do, though it might, but simply that people prefer to read what the AIs generate for ten or 20 years. And it’s harder to get an audience because playing with the AIs is a lot of fun.

“The challenge might be competing against AI, and it doesn’t have to be that AI does it better than you or I do, though it might, but simply that people prefer to read what the AIs generate for ten or 20 years. And it’s harder to get an audience because playing with the AIs is a lot of fun.”
Speaker
Tyler Cowen
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast
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