Tyler Cowen
American economist and authorWikipedia
121
MENTIONS
82
EPISODES
52
PODCASTS
Search complete. 121 mentions across 82 episodes found for "Tyler Cowen".
Sep 20, 2026
Robinson ErhardtHOST
Hmm.
Robinson ErhardtHOST
How do you respond to critics? So I've had a, a lot of people on the podcast, um, Reid Hoffman or Tyler Cowen come to mind, who are extremely bullish on AI and it bolstering, um, the economy and inclusivity.
Daron AcemogluGUEST
Well, look, uh, I am also not a pessimist when it comes to AI's capabilities.
Daron AcemogluGUEST
But I don't see how you can make a airtight case that AI would create more opportunities for all kinds of workers when its current direction is shaped by AGI, artificial general intelligence.
Zvi MowshowitzHOST
There have to also be some strict rules, since the world sometimes requires it, and Claude then ideally follows them, because it is the right thing to do.
Zvi MowshowitzHOST
Tyler Cowen visited Anthropic recently as part of a panel offering advice on rewriting the Claude Constitution, getting serious time with key decision-makers and coming away impressed with the quality of discussions.
Tyler CowenSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Tyler Cowen.
Tyler CowenSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Marginal Revolution.
Tyler CowenSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Some of the points I stressed were the following.
Tyler CowenSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
To the extent the panel of diverse AIs might have concerns about Clawed not following its constitution, those AIs could alert the human adjudicators to what was going on.
Tyler CowenSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Those human adjudicators could then have authority over potential changes and remedies.
Zvi MowshowitzHOST
I would say that Tyler Cowen's suggestions make excellent sense in a world without superintelligence, where you can afford to muddle through and want to use humanity's finest muddling through techniques.
Type 3 AudioNARRATOR
There have to also be some strict rules, since the world sometimes requires it, and Claude then ideally follows them because it is the right thing to do.
Type 3 AudioNARRATOR
Tyler Cowen visited Anthropic recently as part of a panel offering advice on rewriting the Claude Constitution, getting serious time with key decision-makers and coming away impressed with the quality of discussions.
Type 3 AudioNARRATOR
Some of the points I stressed were the following.
Type 3 AudioNARRATOR
1.
Type 3 AudioNARRATOR
Those human adjudicators could then have authority over potential changes and remedies.
Type 3 AudioNARRATOR
End quote.
Type 3 AudioNARRATOR
I would say that Tyler Cowen's suggestions make excellent sense in a world without superintelligence, where you can afford to muddle through and want to use humanity's finest muddling through techniques.
Type 3 AudioNARRATOR
They're still directionally correct, since the Constitution is indeed a guide to transitional muddling through, but there is a reason the Constitution is primarily virtue ethics and only secondarily attempting to be law.
Michelle GoldbergGUEST
But I think the weird but it also, I think, helps explain why they are willing to risk the future of humanity, because the alternative to them seems so intolerable.
Michelle GoldbergGUEST
There's a famous exchange between the podcaster and writer Tyler Cowen and Sam Bankman Freed.
Michelle GoldbergGUEST
where Sam Bankman Freed is asked about a wager.
Michelle GoldbergGUEST
Would he accept a 49% chance of human extinction for a 51% chance of kind of doubling the earth? But anyway, he says
AlexAUDIENCE
Um,
John DelonyHOST
but here's the thing I want you to, in addition to making some clear boundaries, um, And just for people listening, Tyler Cowen with Marginal Revolution, he's an economist.
John DelonyHOST
I think he's at GWU.
John DelonyHOST
He is a brilliant thinker on AI.
Liv BoereeGUEST
The process of getting it out there will be extremely helpful.
Liv BoereeGUEST
Plus, I'm stealing this from Tyler Cowen, but I think it's a really cool point he made.
Liv BoereeGUEST
He's like, you're not just writing for other humans anymore.
Liv BoereeGUEST
You're writing for AIs too.
BethHOST
We're going to go to Helen Andrews.
Helen AndrewsSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
The libertarian economist Tyler Cowen once wrote a blog post describing all of the revolutions he's seen in the course of his lifetime, starting with the moon landing when he was a little boy and going up chronologically to today's advent of AI.
Helen AndrewsSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
And there were only seven revolutions on this list because this was only the greatest and most earth-shaking ones.
Helen AndrewsSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
And right there, between the fall of communism and the invention of the internet, was something called the Great Feminization.
Christian BritschgiHOST
Right.
Christian BritschgiHOST
And also this idea of, yeah, I guess call it, Tyler Cowen in his book, Stubborn Attachments, calls it like zero discounting, right? So that you should value the lives of future humans the same as you would people today, right? And his conclusion in that book is, okay, so then what we want to do is maximize economic growth.
Christian BritschgiHOST
growth and then also environmental protection.
Christian BritschgiHOST
Because if we prioritize people in the present over people in the future by reducing economic growth, there's like the rates of compound interest or whatever, we're massively reducing living standards in the future and that would be a moral harm.
Ron BakerHOST
You know, it's a social process.
Ed KlessHOST
Well, so I want to ask you about something, Ron, because I don't know if you saw this, but this is something that Tyler Cowen wrote up this weekend in his Marginal Revolution blog.
Ed KlessHOST
And I'm not sure that I fully understand this.
Ed KlessHOST
I'm going to take this through slow.
JoãoHOST
Megan is an artist and writer at Fashionably Late Takes, since she can't draw fast enough for hot takes, and a contributor at Quillette.
JoãoHOST
She was also recently awarded a new aesthetics grant from Patrick Collison and Tyler Cohen to try to invent a new ornamental style of architecture.
JoãoHOST
She's also hosting a phenomenal book club saloon series on East of Eden.
JoãoHOST
And so today in our conversation, we talked about many things.
Megan GaffordGUEST
Architects start winning more for drawings than for buildings.
Megan GaffordGUEST
so that this just gave me this pet theory it's okay it was the drawing it was my art form that killed beautiful architecture it was the murder weapon for beautiful architecture that these guys these modernist architects were using so I was a little fixated on this.
Megan GaffordGUEST
And then there's this call for a new aesthetics grant that Tyler Cowen and Patrick Hollison put out.
Megan GaffordGUEST
And it wasn't just the architecture, but they were focusing on architecture in their call for grants.
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