Toby Ord weighs whether AI-created consumer varieties can beat diminishing-returns curves toward explosive growth
tobyordoxford · x · 2026-09-21
Philosopher Toby Ord discusses with Timothy Lee, Ryan Greenblatt and Phil Trammell whether AI could drive explosive economic growth.
- Phil's argument: diminishing marginal-utility curves measured within a given year ignore gains from new, superior product varieties that an AI-datacenter-driven "thinking explosion" could keep creating.
- Ord finds the argument appealing but is skeptical about how probable that growth path is, even if it could work in theory.
Related event: Debate: Can Consumer Demand Absorb an AI Compute Explosion?(5 posts)→
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