Dare I call this the Lump of Intelligence fallacy, after the Lump of Labor fallacy?
Yes, Tyler Cowen is implicitly assuming that intelligence has a fixed demand, but in fact probably has unlimited demand, and thus the value of intelligence in general will always be high, especially in advanced economies.
Maybe the central disagreement with Tyler Cowen’s model here is I basically think population growth is a huge component of how GDP/technology grows in general, and I believe Tyler Cowen is basically wrong here:
(3:55) Tyler is asked wouldn’t a large rise in population drive economic growth? He says no, that’s too much a 1-factor model, in fact we’ve seen a lot of population growth without innovation or productivity growth.
I’d say this would increase GDP by quite a bit, but then somewhat revert to normal (at a new higher growth rate. Again, I disagree with Tyler Cowen here.
(10:15) Dwarkesh asks, what would happen if the world population would double? Tyler says, depends what you’re measuring. Energy use would go up. But he doesn’t agree with population-based models, too many other things matter.
The central disagreement, IMO is I genuinely disbelieve Tyler Cowen on what would happen if the population increases, and I trust economic models more saying this could well cause superexponential growth than Tyler Cowen here is, combined with me disagreeing about the value of intelligence in general for very advanced economies.
Yes, Tyler Cowen is implicitly assuming that intelligence has a fixed demand, but in fact probably has unlimited demand, and thus the value of intelligence in general will always be high, especially in advanced economies.
Maybe the central disagreement with Tyler Cowen’s model here is I basically think population growth is a huge component of how GDP/technology grows in general, and I believe Tyler Cowen is basically wrong here:
I’d say this would increase GDP by quite a bit, but then somewhat revert to normal (at a new higher growth rate. Again, I disagree with Tyler Cowen here.
The central disagreement, IMO is I genuinely disbelieve Tyler Cowen on what would happen if the population increases, and I trust economic models more saying this could well cause superexponential growth than Tyler Cowen here is, combined with me disagreeing about the value of intelligence in general for very advanced economies.