My notes from listening to this March 5, 2025 interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1ztOoADp7M) are below.
Tyler Cowen:
"...if you're not focused on the technical side, you'll see other things more clearly. Maybe over time, some of my future intuitions will be quite wrong. I readily admit that, but there are ways in which it [this focus] can be an advantage. You just focus on what is this actually good for, and not 'am I impressed by all the neat bells and whistles on this advance with AI.' But you've got to be super practical on how you address it. Don't spend too much time on the abstract [aspects]. Work with it, use it, be self-critical about what you're doing with it, and be willing to learn from other people."
When asked what would be the impact on him if AI disappeared, Tyler said, "I would just learn much less."
However, he says, humanity will face many social and structural disruptions from AI, and that could sometimes go very badly. "Being nervous is the correct point of view."
[Tyler talks about why he is blogging more about his personal experiences and perspectives, expecting the information will be folded into the AI knowledge base.]: "When you write for the AI's, for one thing, they're you're most sympathetic reader.... They're your best informed reader--you don't need to give them much background context."
[His interviewer, David Perell, a writer, worries about what kind of human writing will still be valuable after AI. He expects that elegant* writing which helps people connect with the author and the subject will survive.] Tyler agrees. "Writers will need to personalize more."
*Elegant is my word, not theirs. They describe this writing as short and specific. They mean it makes a quick point that know one else could make. (The best Coffee with Phil meetings contain a lot of that. That's what I listen to find.)
Tyler requires his students to use AI, and he says their biggest mistake is not using (and paying for) the best models. He decided to skip a textbook for the class, saying it would leave plenty of money in their pocket to subscribe to a couple of the best models. He notes that, at the time of the interview, the best model is $200/month.
They speculate that expert people will become more likely to keep secrets, to keep their knowledge out of the AI, in order to maintain their value as an expert. If people become better at 'trading secrets,' then social networks could become even more valuable. [My comment: "It's not what you know, it's who you know."] Tyler: "Your network of humans becomes not just 20% more valuable, it could be 50 times more valuable." [Than what you can learn from AI]. "The value of networking has gone up a lot more than people realize."