I just want to say[1] that I agree with ~everything in this post. I think the most exciting topics in AGI & econ are stuff that tries to relax some of the standard assumptions, and also stuff attempts to map out the political economy of societies with powerful AIs.
Honestly I don’t know. I’ve always been a big fan of “weird” econ papers like studying why people pray for rain, folklore, and political economy of alternative realities. I think there is a space in economics for work like the ones you outlined in the post.
Maybe someone just has to write the first paper that challenges these assumptions? You could also try having someone run a workshop on this, but I don’t expect that to work very well.
Probably the best way to reach these economist is by producing compelling outputs targeted towards a broad general audience. Like I think Matt Ygelesias has pretty good AI takes,[1] and I don’t think he required any targeted outreach to come around.
I just want to say[1] that I agree with ~everything in this post. I think the most exciting topics in AGI & econ are stuff that tries to relax some of the standard assumptions, and also stuff attempts to map out the political economy of societies with powerful AIs.
As someone who has a background in econ and currently does technical AIS research.
Curious what do you think would help more talented economists to engage?
Honestly I don’t know. I’ve always been a big fan of “weird” econ papers like studying why people pray for rain, folklore, and political economy of alternative realities. I think there is a space in economics for work like the ones you outlined in the post.
Maybe someone just has to write the first paper that challenges these assumptions? You could also try having someone run a workshop on this, but I don’t expect that to work very well.
Probably the best way to reach these economist is by producing compelling outputs targeted towards a broad general audience. Like I think Matt Ygelesias has pretty good AI takes,[1] and I don’t think he required any targeted outreach to come around.
His recent post takes Musk’s space datacenters buildout quite seriously, despite the fact that people in the comment section mostly not buying it.