“Four ways Econ makes people dumber re: future AI” by Steven Byrnes

(Cross-posted from X, intended for a general audience.) There's a funny thing where economics education paradoxically makes people DUMBER at thinking about future AI. Econ textbooks teach concepts & frames that are great for most things, but counterproductive for thinking about AGI. Here are 4 examples. Longpost: THE FIRST PIECE of Econ anti-pedagogy is hiding in the words “labor” & “capital”. These words conflate a superficial difference (flesh-and-blood human vs not) with a bundle of unspoken assumptions and intuitions, which will all get broken by Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). By “AGI” I mean here “a bundle of chips, algorithms, electricity, and/or teleoperated robots that can autonomously do the kinds of stuff that ambitious human adults can do—founding and running new companies, R&D, learning new skills, using arbitrary teleoperated robots after very little practice, etc.” Yes I know, this does not exist yet! (Despite hype to the contrary.) Try asking [...] ---Outline:(08:50) Tweet 2(09:19) Tweet 3(10:16) Tweet 4(11:15) Tweet 5(11:31) 1.3.2 Three increasingly-radical perspectives on what AI capability acquisition will look likeThe original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration. --- First published: August 21st, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xJWBofhLQjf3KmRgg/four-ways-econ-makes-people-dumber-re-future-ai --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article: