Dwarkesh and Noah Smith on AGI and the Economy

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Science, Innovation, Business, Entrepreneurship, Culture, Disruption, Software Eating The World, Technology

4.4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, Erik Torenberg is joined in the studio by Dwarkesh Patel and Noah Smith to explore one of the biggest questions in tech: what exactly is artificial general intelligence (AGI), and how close are we to achieving it? They break down: -Competing definitions of AGI — economic vs. cognitive vs. “godlike” -Why reasoning alone isn’t enough — and what capabilities models still lack -The debate over substitution vs. complementarity between AI and human labor -What an AI-saturated economy might look like — from growth projections to UBI, sovereign wealth funds, and galaxy-colonizing robots -How AGI could reshape global power, geopolitics, and the future of work Along the way, they tackle failed predictions, surprising AI limitations, and the philosophical and economic consequences of building machines that think, and perhaps one day, act, like us.

Transcript

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0:00.0	AI might be generating hundreds of dollars of value for me a month, but humans are generating thousands of dollars or tens of thousands of dollars for me a month. Why is that the case? And I think it's just like, AI is lacking these capabilities, human have these capabilities. You are a natural general intelligence, but we cannot easily do each other's jobs, even though our jobs are fairly similar. The reason humans are so valuable is not just their raw intellect.
0:21.4	It's their ability to build up context, it's to target their own failures,
0:25.5	and pick up small efficiencies and improvements as they practice a task.
0:29.2	Whereas with an AI model, it's understanding of your problem, your business,
0:33.5	will be expunged by the end of a session.
0:36.1	Every other technological tool is a compliment to humans, and yet when people talk about AI and think about AI, they essentially never seem to think in these terms. They always seem to think in terms of perfect substitutability. What happens when AI can do almost every white-collar job but still can't remember what you told you yesterday? What does that mean for AGI, the future of work, and the shape of the global economy?
0:55.3	I sat down with Noah Smith, author of No Opinion, and Dorcasht Patel, host the Dorcasch podcast, to
1:00.6	unpack what's real and what's hype in the race against AGI. We talk about continual learning,
1:05.6	economic substitution, galaxy scale growth, and whether humanity's biggest challenge is technological
1:10.7	or political.
1:12.5	Let's get into it.
1:16.9	As a reminder, the content here is for informational purposes only.
1:20.5	Should not be taken as legal business, tax, or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security,
1:26.3	and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any A16Z fund.
1:31.0	Please note that A16Z and its affiliates may also maintain investments
1:34.0	in the companies discussed in this podcast.
1:36.2	For more details, including a link to our investments,
1:39.1	please see A16Z.com forward slash disclosures.
1:47.5	Darkesh, Noah, welcome.
1:49.3	Our first podcast ever as a trio.
1:51.3	Yes, excited.
1:52.3	I'm very excited.
	...

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