Samuel Hammond joins the podcast to discuss how AGI will transform economies, governments, institutions, and other power structures. You can read Samuel's blog at https://www.secondbest.ca Timestamps: 00:00 Is AGI close? 06:56 Compute versus data 09:59 Information theory 20:36 Universality of learning 24:53 Hards steps in evolution 30:30 Governments and advanced AI 40:33 How will AI transform the economy? 55:26 How will AI change transaction costs? 1:00:31 Isolated thinking about AI 1:09:43 AI and Leviathan 1:13:01 Informational resolution 1:18:36 Open-source AI 1:21:24 AI will decrease state power 1:33:17 Timeline of a techno-feudalist future 1:40:28 Alignment difficulty and AI scale 1:45:19 Solving robotics 1:54:40 A constrained Leviathan 1:57:41 An Apollo Project for AI safety 2:04:29 Secure "gain-of-function" AI research 2:06:43 Is the market expecting AGI soon?
Deric Cheng of the Windfall Trust discusses how AGI could transform the social contract, jobs, and inequality, exploring labor displacement, resilient work, new tax and welfare models, and long-term visions for decoupling economic security from employment.
Researcher Oly Sourbut discusses how AI tools might strengthen human reasoning, from fact-checking and scenario planning to honest AI standards and better coordination, and explores how to keep humans central while building trustworthy, society-wide sensemaking.
David Duvenaud examines gradual disempowerment after AGI, exploring how economic and political power and property rights could erode, why AI alignment may become unpopular, and what forecasting and governance might require.
