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

This is my fourth interview with the pre-eminent infovore Tyler Cowen – and yet I’m always hearing new stuff from him. We talked at the Progress Conference 2024 about why he thinks AI won't drive explosive economic growth, the real bottlenecks on progress, him now writing for AIs instead of humans, and the difficult relationship between being cultured and fostering growth – among many other things. 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. Roots of Progress Institute: https://rootsofprogress.org/ 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒 * Transcript: https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/tyler-cowen-4 * Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/3RFuS7b * Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/48EIEaESY0IGxf02pzIEIN?si=d2S1y6HUQuulAOGKVV7GhQ 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒 * 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 roles, go to https://janestreet.com/dwarkesh 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 00:00:00 - Economic Growth and AI 00:15:45 - Founder Mode and increasing variance 00:30:19 - Effective Altruism and Progress Studies 00:33:53 - What AI changes for Tyler 00:45:45 - The slow diffusion of innovation 00:50:41 - Stalin's library 00:53:07 - DC vs SF vs EU