Dwarkesh and Noah Smith on AGI and the Economy

Dwarkesh Patel and Noah Smith debate the definition of AGI, its economic implications, and timelines. They contrast an economic definition (automating white-collar work) with a cognitive one, exploring why current models lack economic value despite reasoning abilities due to a failure in 'continual learning'. The discussion covers the potential for explosive economic growth versus a collapse in consumer demand, the substitution vs. complementarity of human labor, and the geopolitical shift from population size to inference capacity as the basis of power.