{
  "id": 17052746,
  "title": "How Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok Have Changed Their Views on AI and Where They Disagree",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/29/how-tyler-cowen-and-alex-tabarrok-have-changed-their-views-on-ai-and",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-10-29T11:17:47.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Marginal Revolution",
    "slug": "marginal-revolution",
    "url": "https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/10/how-tyler-cowen-and-alex-tabarrok-have-changed-their-views-on-ai.html"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok have both become more confident in the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) over time while maintaining an optimistic outlook on its economic potential. However, their views diverge on how these benefits will manifest, the risks associated with AI, and whether AI possesses consciousness.\n\nCowen emphasizes the role of institutions, bottlenecks, and geopolitical competition in the distribution of AI's benefits. He is wary of rapid technological advancement and its potential to exacerbate existing inequalities. Tabarrok, on the other hand, highlights inexpensive intelligence and scientific discovery as key drivers of progress. He also expresses growing concern about concrete safety failures, particularly in his more recent writings.\n\nTheir initial perspectives on the unequal distribution of gains from AI and the abundance it could create were shaped by Cowen's background in chess. He believed that strong computers required strong human partners, which would affect which skills commanded a premium. Tabarrok, in contrast, viewed AI as an increase in the world's supply of educated people, leading to more ideas and benefits that would be spread to consumers.\n\nWhile neither Cowen nor Tabarrok predicted AI would completely replace human intelligence within a few decades, their views evolved significantly by 2023. By March of that year, Tabarrok explicitly endorsed Microsoft researchers' description of GPT-4 as exhibiting an incomplete form of general intelligence, marking a substantial shift from his previous stance. Cowen reached a similar conclusion on April 16, 2025, acknowledging that AI could be AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), but emphasized the time needed to use it properly.\n\nDespite their growing confidence in AI's capabilities, Cowen and Tabarrok remain cautious about the pace of adoption and the potential economic impact. In January 2025, Tabarrok predicted that the intelligence revolution would be bigger, more impactful, and more wrenching than the industrial revolution. However, Cowen was more tentative, suggesting that human bottlenecks would become more important as AI became more productive. He estimated an additional half percentage point of annual growth, which, while significant when compounded, is far from an immediate economic explosion.\n\nBoth authors have also paid increasing attention to the potential risks and negative consequences of AI. Cowen has expressed concern about AI lowering net existential risks, while Tabarrok has focused on specific vulnerabilities, such as the combination of very powerful AI and its vulnerability to cybersecurity threats and manipulation. He emphasized that faster scientific advancements do not automatically translate to faster defense mechanisms, highlighting the importance of robust institutional safeguards.",
  "summary": "From the Archives-written by ChatGPT. Both became dramatically more confident in AI’s capabilities while remaining optimistic about its economic potential. Their differences concern how benefits arrive, how seriously to weight emerging dangers, and whether AI might possess consciousness. Cowen emphasizes institutions, bottlenecks, and geopolitical competition. Tabarrok emphasizes inexpensive…",
  "key_points": [
    "Cowen and Tabarrok grew more confident in AI capabilities over time",
    "They disagree on AI's distribution of benefits and associated risks",
    "Tabarrok sees AI as increase in educated people, Cowen emphasizes institutions and geopolitics"
  ],
  "editors_take": "The evolving consensus between these economists signals a shift toward accepting general intelligence while highlighting a fundamental divide between institutional bottlenecks and the potential for rapid scientific abundance.",
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}