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Conversations with Tyler

Cass Sunstein on Liberalism and Rights in the Age of AI

Conversations with Tyler

Conversations with Tyler

Society & Culture, Education

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 26 November 2025

⏱️ 80 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Cass Sunstein is one of the most widely cited legal scholars of all time and among the most prolific writers working today. This year alone he has five books out, including Imperfect Oracle on the strengths and limits of AI and On Liberalism: In Defense of Freedom. In his second appearance on the show, he brings his characteristic intellectual range to exploring liberalism's present precariousness and AI's implications for law and speech.

Tyler and Cass discuss whether liberalism is self-undermining or simply vulnerable to illiberal forces, the tensions in how a liberal immigration regime would work, whether new generations of liberal thinkers are emerging, if Derek Parfit counts as a liberal, Mill's liberal wokeism, the allure of Mises' "cranky enthusiasm for freedom," whether the central claim of The Road to Serfdom holds up, how to blend indigenous rights with liberal thought, whether AIs should have First Amendment protections, the argument for establishing a right not to be manipulated, better remedies for low-grade libel, whether we should have trials run by AI, how Bob Dylan embodies liberal freedom, Cass' next book about animal rights, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on the new dedicated Conversations with Tyler channel.

Recorded October 10th, 2025.

This episode was made possible through the support of the John Templeton Foundation.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Conversations with Tyler is produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University,

0:09.4

bridging the gap between academic ideas and real-world problems.

0:13.5

Learn more at Mercadis.org.

0:15.7

For a full transcript of every conversation enhanced with helpful links,

0:20.4

visit Conversationswithtyler.com.

0:26.4

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler. Today I'm sitting at Harvard Law

0:31.5

School talking with Cass Sunstein. Cass is the most widely cited legal scholar of all time, among his other achievements.

0:39.6

Congratulations for that.

0:41.4

This year he has, I believe, five maybe more books out.

0:45.3

Some of them he's been working on for a long time, so it's a little misleading.

0:48.9

But he has on liberalism and defense of freedom, which if anything will be our focus,

0:53.7

a new book on manipulation,

0:55.5

a book called Imperfect Oracle on the Strengths and Limits of AI, a co-authored book,

1:00.7

Algorithmic Harm, and also Climate Justice. Have I left anything out? I really hope that's

1:06.8

the entire list. And in February, there's one coming on separation of powers.

1:11.3

Kassanstein, welcome.

1:12.6

A pleasure and an honor to be here.

1:15.1

Now, your new book on liberalism is primarily a defense of the liberal concept, but if someone

1:20.3

asks you, what's the most likely scenario for liberalism being self-undermining?

1:25.4

What's your worry?

1:27.3

Low probability, the likelihood is that we'll be undermined by anti-liberal and illiberal forces,

1:34.7

not self-undermining. I think it's fair to say or to worry that liberalism doesn't create

...

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