Tyler Cowen engages today's deepest thinkers in wide-ranging explorations of their work, the world, and everything in between. New conversations every other Wednesday. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
The conversation explores Machiavelli's political thought and its relevance to modern politics with Harvey Mansfield, who has a new book out called "The Rise and Fall of Rational Control." Mansfield argues Machiavelli's concept of "effectual truth" laid the groundwork for modern science by emphasizing facts over wishfu...
The conversation explores the economic prospects and challenges facing Africa, particularly focusing on population density, governance, and industrialization. Joe Studwell, author of "How Africa Works," discusses how low population density has historically hindered Africa's development, though increased density alone i...
The podcast explores the parallels between the 1929 stock market crash and more recent financial events, particularly concerning speculation, debt, and regulatory responses. Andrew Ross Sorkin, author of "1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in History and How it Shattered a Nation," discusses whether the pre-crash stock pr...
Brendan Foody, CEO and co-founder of Mercor, an AI company, discusses how AI models are trained and evaluated, particularly in subjective domains like poetry, where experts grade the AI's output using rubrics. He highlights the AI Productivity Index (APEX), which measures model improvement at economically valuable task...
In this retrospective episode of Conversations with Tyler, Tyler Cowen and Jeff Holmes reflect on the past year, highlighting favorite and underrated episodes, including those featuring Johnny Steinberg, Ian Leslie, and Amy Austin. They discuss listener questions ranging from AI's impact on their production to Tyler's ...
Alison Gopnik, a professor of psychology and philosophy, explores how children learn and how it relates to scientific learning. She argues that children, like scientists, systematically figure out the structure of the world from data, often being more Bayesian than scientists due to fewer prior assumptions. Gopnik intr...
In this episode of Conversations with Tyler, Tyler Cowen interviews Gaurav Kapadia, an investor and New York City enthusiast, about his views on New York City's infrastructure, economy, and culture, as well as his investment strategies, art collecting, and new magazine venture, Totei. Kapadia shares insights on urban d...
In this episode of Conversations with Tyler, Tyler Cowen interviews Dan Wang, author of "Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future." They discuss infrastructure in the US versus China, touching on high-speed rail, subway systems, and the impact of infrastructure on quality of life and GDP. They debate the role of...
In this episode of Conversations with Tyler, Tyler Cowen interviews Blake Scholl, the founder of Boom, about various ways to improve the speed and efficiency of air travel and other systems. Scholl shares his ideas for airport design, airport security, airline operations, and manufacturing, advocating for privatization...
In this episode of Conversations with Tyler, Tyler Cowen interviews Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, discussing a wide range of topics related to AI, OpenAI's strategies, and the future implications of AI technology. They delve into OpenAI's productivity, hardware ventures, and the unique qualities of its team members. Altma...
In this episode of Conversations with Tyler, Tyler Cowen interviews Steven Pinker about his new book, "When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows..." They discuss the importance of common knowledge in economics, politics, and everyday life, exploring its role in coordination and the potential fragility of common knowledge...
Follow this podcast in Podwise
Sign in to get AI summaries, transcripts and mind maps for any episode, including new ones.
