January 26, 2022

Can the economy grow indefinitely? (with Alyssa Vance)

1 hour 16 minutes

Read the full transcript here.

How is the economy like a differential equation? Can the economy grow indefinitely? Are there economic attractor states? Or are economic outcomes chaotic and/or extremely sensitive to certain variables? What should we know about progress in genetic engineering? Can you (and should you) do genetic engineering in your garage? What are some common mistakes people make when thinking about AI? Should we expect AI abilities to converge in some domains and diverge in others? Why do we sometimes collectively forget important ideas? Have we as a species grown wiser over the course of our history? How can we form high-trust communities on the internet? In the context of social media, is ease of access at cross-purposes with membership screening and/or costs, or is it possible to have both? What should we make of ephemeral communities that appear briefly, do something huge, and then disappear (like the WallStreetBets subreddit phenomenon)? What are the various types of misinformation being used in the US, Russia, China, and elsewhere?

Alyssa Vance is an engineer of AI systems, a futurist, and an entrepreneur. She is currently serving as an independent consultant for a variety of organizations interested in AI. She was previously the first employee at Apprente, which developed conversational AI for the McDonald's drive-thru and was acquired by McDonald's in 2019. She was a founder of CandleCRM, MetaMed, and GetBitcoin, and served as Executive Director of the World Transhumanist Association. She also hosts the Long Term World Improvement mailing list and other groups for discussing future technology. Alyssa has recently joined Twitter at @alyssamvance and can be reached via email at [email protected].

Staff