/AI6h ago

Imas And Trammell Debate Who Controls Civilization's Far Future

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#70Dwarkesh Patel
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Dwarkesh Patel@dwarkesh_sp#70inAI

Whose preferences will determine the shape of the far future? Alex Imas and Phil Trammell debate:

- Alex speculates that humans who have an intrinsic preference for other humans, and have a moral objection to AI services, will be better at finding other humans to reproduce with. In the long run evolution will favour them.

- Phil argues that the transhumanist types who have no issues with AI and want to explore the galaxy will have a higher savings rate, and in the long run will control almost all of the resources in the economy.

A super important question for thinking about the long run future of civilization.

12:00 PM · Jun 6, 2026 · 11.4K Views
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Dwarkesh Patel@dwarkesh_sp

So much more in the full episode:

Dwarkesh Patel@dwarkesh_sp

Economics of AGI episode w Alex Imas and Phil Trammell.

There's a bunch of important questions about how we deal with AI that only economics can answer.

What is the optimal way to tax and redistribute the wealth that will be generated? How should countries not in the AI supply chain index into the gains? Is there any world where inequality doesn't explode?

It might seem like these questions have obvious answers, but the first thing economics teaches you is that your intuitions can often be entirely wrong.

It was very helpful to chat through these things with Alex and Phil.

Look up Dwarkesh Podcast on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or Spotify. Enjoy!

00:00:00 – Will capital share increase? 00:19:36 – Messy Middle scenario 00:25:57 – How to tax and redistribute AI wealth 00:30:02 – Why demand collapse is unlikely 00:39:26 – Human employees would be hard to integrate into the machine economy 00:43:08 – What if some humans (or AIs) value wealth accumulation intrinsically? 01:01:28 – What should developing countries do?

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Eclipse 🌖@ECLresearch

@dwarkesh_sp Interesting framing — it implies human mating markets could end up as the primary selection mechanism for AI resistance. Would be curious if that assumption holds in a world where AI-driven matchmaking optimizes for compatibility over moral stance.

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