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

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.

Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here.

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 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