Conversations with Tyler

By: Mercatus Center at George Mason University
  • Summary

  • Tyler Cowen engages today’s deepest thinkers in wide-ranging explorations of their work, the world, and everything in between. New conversations every other Wednesday. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
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Episodes
  • Jack Clark on AI's Uneven Impact
    May 7 2025

    Few understand both the promise and limitations of artificial general intelligence better than Jack Clark, co-founder of Anthropic. With a background in journalism and the humanities that sets him apart in Silicon Valley, Clark offers a refreshingly sober assessment of AI's economic impact—predicting growth of 3-5% rather than the 20-30% touted by techno-optimists—based on his firsthand experience of repeatedly underestimating AI progress while still recognizing the physical world's resistance to digital transformation.

    In this conversation, Jack and Tyler explore which parts of the economy AGI will affect last, where AI will encounter the strongest legal obstacles, the prospect of AI teddy bears, what AI means for the economics of journalism, how competitive the LLM sector will become, why he’s relatively bearish on AI-fueled economic growth, how AI will change American cities, what we'll do with abundant compute, how the law should handle autonomous AI agents, whether we’re entering the age of manager nerds, AI consciousness, when we'll be able to speak directly to dolphins, AI and national sovereignty, how the UK and Singapore might position themselves as AI hubs, what Clark hopes to learn next, and much more.

    Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.

    Recorded March 28th, 2025.

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    Other ways to connect

    • Follow us on X and Instagram
    • Follow Tyler on X
    • Follow Jack on X
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    • Join our Discord
    • Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu
    • Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.
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    1 hr and 3 mins
  • Kenneth Rogoff on Monetary Moves, Fiscal Gambits, and Classical Chess
    Apr 30 2025

    Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff approaches global finance with the same strategic foresight that made him a chess grandmaster. Author of the new book Our Dollar, Your Problem, Rogoff doesn't sugarcoat America's future: he foresees a significant inflation shock within a decade, far more severe than the post-COVID bout. When this second wave hits, he warns, "credibility's really going to be shot."

    In this conversation, Ken and Tyler tackle international economic dynamics, unresolved macro puzzles, the state of chess, and more, including whether trade deficits are truly unsustainable, why China's investment-heavy growth model has reached its limits, how currency depreciation neutralizes tariff effects, Pakistan’s IMF bailouts, whether more Latin American countries should dollarize, Japan's deceptively peaceful economic decline, Europe's coming fiscal reckoning, how the US will eventually confront its ballooning debt, the puzzling absence of a recession during our recent disinflation, the potential of phasing out large denomination currency notes, the future relevance of stablecoins, whether America should start a CBDC, Argentina's chances under Milei, who will be the next dominant player in chess, hanging out with Bobby Fischer, drawing out against Magnus Carlsen, and how to save classical chess from excessive computer preparation.

    Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.

    Recorded April 2nd, 2025.

    Help keep the show ad free by donating today!

    Other ways to connect

    • Follow us on X and Instagram
    • Follow Tyler on X
    • Follow Kenneth on X
    • Sign up for our newsletter
    • Join our Discord
    • Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu
    • Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.
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    1 hr and 1 min
  • Chris Dixon on Blockchains, AI, and the Future of the Internet
    Apr 23 2025

    Chris Dixon believes we're at a pivotal inflection point in the internet's evolution. As a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz and author of Read Write Own, Chris believes the current internet, dominated by large platforms like YouTube and Spotify, has strayed far from its decentralized roots. He argues that the next era—powered by blockchain technology—can restore autonomy to creators, lower barriers for innovation, and shift economic power back to the network's edges.

    Tyler and Chris discuss the economics of platform dominance, how blockchains merge protocol-based social benefits with corporate-style competitive advantages, the rise of stablecoins as a viable blockchain-based application, whether Bitcoin or AI-created currencies will dominate machine-to-machine payments, why Stack Overflow could be the first of many casualties in an AI-driven web, venture capital’s vulnerability to AI disruption, whether open-source AI could preserve national sovereignty, NFTs as digital property rights system for AIs, how Kant’s synthetic a priori, Kripke’s modal logic, and Heidegger’s Dasein sneak into Dixon’s term‑sheet thinking, and much more.

    Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.

    Recorded March 26th, 2025.

    Help keep the show ad free by donating today!

    Other ways to connect

    • Follow us on X and Instagram
    • Follow Tyler on X
    • Follow Chris on X
    • Sign up for our newsletter
    • Join our Discord
    • Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu
    • Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.
    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 3 mins
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