Ep. 3: Thinking Machines: AI, Doomerism and the Economics of Human Work скачать в хорошем качестве

Ep. 3: Thinking Machines: AI, Doomerism and the Economics of Human Work

Episode 3: Humans and AI - Doomerism, Economic Disruption, and the Future of Work In this episode, Rajesh Sampathkumar and Bargava Subramanian go off-script for a free-wheeling conversation about something that cuts across technology, economics, and human meaning: what happens to humans as AI accelerates. They trace the arc from the printing press to ChatGPT, exploring how each disruption changed the economics of creation and distribution. The core question: when the cost of building software is zero, what's left that's uniquely human? What this episode covers: Doomerism unpacked: Why experienced AI practitioners are genuinely worried that anything formally verifiable will be automated, and why taste and judgment are the last thin moats Manufacturing as a mirror: How industrial automation reshaped employment over 100 years and why the AI disruption is different this time around The concentration problem: Trillion-dollar data center investments concentrating AI power in a handful of labs, and what that means for the broader economy Indic languages and inclusion: The opportunity Sarvam and others have to bring 1.4 billion people into an AI-enabled economy, and the double-edged nature of that convenience Healthcare as a bright spot: How AI is already enabling TB screening in the foothills of the Himalayas where doctors simply don't exist Jevons paradox in software: Why cheaper, better AI tools may produce more slop, not less, and who bears accountability when on-demand software breaks The Indian textile mill analogy: How Britain's industrialization wiped out India's artisan class in a single generation, and whether AI will do the same to knowledge workers Economics after disruption: UBI, planned economies, and whether the capitalist model can survive a world where knowledge work is fully automated The episode closes with a look at education as a lagging indicator and a preview of future deep-dives into economics and schooling in the post-AI world. Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction and recap of episodes 1 and 2 02:00 From discriminative to generative AI: what changed in 2022 05:30 The printing press, Gutenberg, and the cost of creation 09:00 What is Doomerism and why it matters in 2026 14:00 Formal verification and the shrinking of human moats 20:00 Manufacturing parallels: 100 years of automation history 27:00 The gym analogy: when AI does the work, what's left for humans? 33:00 Power concentration and trillion-dollar bets on AI infrastructure 38:00 Indic languages: Sarvam and linguistic inclusion in India 44:00 Healthcare AI: TB screening and population-scale impact 49:00 Jevons paradox, on-demand software, and security risks 55:00 Baumol's cost disease and where jobs go after disruption 01:01:00 The Indian textile mill analogy 01:07:00 UBI, socialism, and the capitalist question 01:12:00 Education as a lagging indicator and wrap-up