{"podcast":{"title":"Faster, Please! — The Podcast","slug":"faster-please-the-podcast-5630783","podcast_index_feed_id":5630783,"rss_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/232077.rss","website_url":"https://fasterplease.substack.com/podcast","image_url":"https://substackcdn.com/feed/podcast/232077/5ccbfa121d3b816d2f9d1b3cf2ea4b1f.jpg","author":"James Pethokoukis","episode_count":97,"summary":"Discovering, creating, and inventing a better world through technological innovation, economic growth, and pro-progress culture.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-14T22:17:54.549631+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/faster-please-the-podcast-5630783"},"episode":{"title":"🤖 Thoughts of a (rare) free-market AI doomer: My chat (+transcript) with economist James Miller","slug":"thoughts-of-a-rare-free-market-ai-doomer-my-chat-transcript-with-economist-james-miller","published_at":"2025-10-24T14:38:15+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/faster-please-the-podcast-5630783/thoughts-of-a-rare-free-market-ai-doomer-my-chat-transcript-with-economist-james-miller","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/faster-please-the-podcast-5630783","url":"https://fasterplease.substack.com/p/thoughts-of-a-rare-free-market-ai","audio_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/175059351/688e0b08a75d3e7e550bf5c44d2af40a.mp3","summary":"My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers, Some Faster, Please! readers have told me I spend too little time on the downsides of AI. If you’re one of those folks, today is your day. On this episode of Faster, Please! — The Podcast , I talk with self-described “free-market AI doomer” James Miller . Miller and I talk about the risks inherent with super-smart AI, some possible outcomes of a world of artificial general intelligence, and why government seems uninterested in the existential risk conversation. Miller is a professor at Smith College where he teaches law and economics, game theory, and the economics of future technology. He has his own podcast, Future Strategist , and a great YouTube series on game theory and intro to microeconomics . On X (Twitter), you can find him at @JimDMiller . In This Episode * Questioning the free market (1:33) * Reading the markets (7:24) * Death (or worse) by AI (10:25) * Friend and foe (13:05) * Pumping the breaks (20:36) * The only policy issue (24:32) Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation. Questioning the free market (1:33) Most technologies have gone fairly well and we adapt . . . I’m of the belief that this is different. Pethokoukis: What does it mean to be a free-market AI doomer and why do you think it’s important to put in the “free-market” descriptor? Miller: It really means to be very confused. I’m 58, and I was basically one of the socialists when I was young, studied markets, became a committed free-market person, think they’re great for economic growth, great for making everyone better off — and then I became an AI doomer, like wait, markets are pushing us towards more and more technology, but I happen to think that AI is eventually going to lead to destruction of humanity. So it means to kind…","meta_description":"My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers, Some Faster, Please! readers have told me I spend too little time on the downsides of AI. If you’re on…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1771,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/faster-please-the-podcast-5630783/episodes/thoughts-of-a-rare-free-market-ai-doomer-my-chat-transcript-with-economist-james-miller/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/faster-please-the-podcast-5630783/thoughts-of-a-rare-free-market-ai-doomer-my-chat-transcript-with-economist-james-miller.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}