Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg

Read the full transcript here.
Could AI trigger an economic break as large as the Industrial Revolution, or even larger? What changes when labor stops being the main bottleneck in production? If intelligence becomes reproducible like software, what happens to the structure of an economy? How should we think about a world where capital captures what labor once did? Does faster growth necessarily mean better lives, or only more output? How should economists model an economy when software begins to substitute for minds? Are current production functions adequate for a world of autonomous systems and robotics? Why do small shifts in annual productivity matter so much once compounding takes over? How much of AI’s impact depends on cognitive automation alone versus full physical automation? When does automation reduce labor demand, and when does it make human work more valuable? If AI does part of a job better, does that destroy the profession or increase demand for it? Under what conditions do humans remain complements rather than substitutes? Could an AI boom create a recession before it creates abundance? What happens to aggregate demand if white collar workers lose income before productivity gains diffuse widely? If the economy can produce more than ordinary people can afford, who is it really producing for? How quickly can consumption patterns shift in a world of extreme concentration of wealth?
Anton is a Professor at the University of Virginia, Department of Economics and Darden School of Business as well as the Faculty Director of the Economics of Transformative AI (EconTAI) Initiative. He was named to the 2025 TIME100 AI list of the most influential people in artificial intelligence. He is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings and the Peterson Institute, a Research Associate at the NBER, a Research Fellow at the CEPR, and serves on Anthropic's Economic Advisory Council. His research analyzes how to prepare for a world of transformative AI systems. He investigates the implications of advanced AI for economic growth, labor markets, inequality, and the future of our society.
Links:
Anton's Website

When Does Automating AI Research Produce Explosive Growth?

Economic Growth under Transformative AI

Staff
Spencer Greenberg — Host + Director
Ryan Kessler — Producer + Technical Lead
WeAmplify — Transcriptionists
Igor Scaldini — Marketing Consultant
Music
Broke for Free
Josh Woodward
Lee Rosevere
Quiet Music for Tiny Robots
wowamusic
zapsplat.com
Affiliates
Clearer Thinking
GuidedTrack
Mind Ease
Positly
UpLift

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Read the full transcript here.
What makes broad, all-encompassing worldviews so attractive in periods of institutional distrust? Why do charismatic figures become especially persuasive when they present themselves as suppressed truth tellers? How much of a guru’s appeal comes from insight, and how much from theater? Why do people so often prefer a guide with certainty over an institution with caveats? What happens when specialist expertise is mistaken for authority about everything? Are we living in the best age for learning or the easiest age for self-deception? What is the difference between being informed and merely feeling informed? Why does the performance of education so often outcompete the practice of education? How much false confidence is created by consuming hours of polished commentary without doing any of the underlying work? Why are people so vulnerable to sources that make complexity feel effortless? How should we think about the gap between exposure to ideas and mastery of them?
Christopher Kavanagh is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Rikkyo University and a Researcher at the Centre for Studies of Social Cohesion at Oxford University. His research focuses mainly on the psychological and social effects of religious belief and collective rituals and he has a long standing interest in skepticism, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theory communities. He co-hosts Decoding The Gurus, a podcast dedicated to examining the techniques of modern online Gurus.
Links:
Christopher's podcast: Decoding The Gurus

Christopher's Faculty Page at Rikkyo University

Staff
Spencer Greenberg — Host + Director
Ryan Kessler — Producer + Technical Lead
WeAmplify — Transcriptionists
Igor Scaldini — Marketing Consultant
Music
Broke for Free
Josh Woodward
Lee Rosevere
Quiet Music for Tiny Robots
wowamusic
zapsplat.com
Affiliates
Clearer Thinking
GuidedTrack
Mind Ease
Positly
UpLift

[Read more]

Read the full transcript here.
If you enjoy our podcast, we have some exciting news – we’ve just launched a new membership called Clearer Thinking Plus.
Members get this podcast completely ad-free, as well as two professional coaching sessions every month, access to our advanced cognitive assessment, and seven other exclusive perks.
Clearer Thinking Plus is one of the most affordable ways to get access to a high-quality coach - whether you want to improve your habits, find more effective ways to work towards your goals, or get assistance making difficult decisions. It is also a more affordable and convenient way to get all the perks we offer.
If you're not interested in coaching, you can still get ad-free access to this podcast and the other perks with our explorer plan.
Access www.clearerthinking.org/plus to become a member today. We hope to see you there!
Can radically different forms of good really be compared? What makes two charitable outcomes commensurable? When does cost effectiveness become a moral argument rather than just an economic one? Is helping the global poor often cheaper for reasons that are ethically relevant? How should we weigh temporary enrichment against preventing severe suffering? At what point does refusing comparison become morally evasive? Are some value systems too implausible to treat as equally serious? How much should location matter when the same intervention works in multiple places? Does the ability to compare causes require a single theory of value? What do we lose by pretending all forms of good are incomparable?
Marcus A. Davis is the co-founder and CEO of Rethink Priorities, a think-and-do tank that uses rigorous empirical research to help philanthropists, policymakers, and cause-focused organizations direct resources where they'll do the most good. Marcus writes about effective charity, EA culture, and arguments around doing good at his Substack, Charity for All, and you can also follow him on Bluesky: amarcusdavis.bsky.social.
Links:
Rethink Priorities Website

Marcus' Substack: Charity for All

Marcus' Bluesky Profile

Staff
Spencer Greenberg — Host + Director
Ryan Kessler — Producer + Technical Lead
WeAmplify — Transcriptionists
Igor Scaldini — Marketing Consultant
Music
Broke for Free
Josh Woodward
Lee Rosevere
Quiet Music for Tiny Robots
wowamusic
zapsplat.com
Affiliates
Clearer Thinking
GuidedTrack
Mind Ease
Positly
UpLift

[Read more]

Read the full transcript here.
If you enjoy our podcast, we have some exciting news – we’ve just launched a new membership called Clearer Thinking Plus.
Members get this podcast completely ad-free, as well as two professional coaching sessions every month, access to our advanced cognitive assessment, and seven other exclusive perks.
Clearer Thinking Plus is one of the most affordable ways to get access to a high-quality coach - whether you want to improve your habits, find more effective ways to work towards your goals, or get assistance making difficult decisions. It is also a more affordable and convenient way to get all the perks we offer.
If you're not interested in coaching, you can still get ad-free access to this podcast and the other perks with our explorer plan.
Access www.clearerthinking.org/plus to become a member today. We hope to see you there!
How much of psychology is built on a statistical illusion? What happens when we mistake population averages for truths about individual lives? Can a person ever really be understood through traits measured at a few isolated moments? Why do simplified categories feel so authoritative even when they fail to capture lived experience? What does it mean for a science of mind to ignore time, context, and development? How much of what we call personality is just a byproduct of how we choose to measure people? If most of what matters is situational, what kind of science would we need instead? Why are average-based explanations so intuitively appealing even when they may mislead us? What gets lost when human beings are treated as snapshots rather than processes? Could clearer thinking begin by questioning the categories we rely on most?
Dr. Steven C. Hayes is an Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno and President of the Institute for Better Health, a 45-year old charitable organization dedicated to better mental and behavioral health.
Links:
Steven's website

Hayes et al.: Evolving an idionomic approach to processes of change: Towards a unified personalized science of human improvement

Staff
Spencer Greenberg — Host + Director
Ryan Kessler — Producer + Technical Lead
WeAmplify — Transcriptionists
Igor Scaldini — Marketing Consultant
Music
Broke for Free
Josh Woodward
Lee Rosevere
Quiet Music for Tiny Robots
wowamusic
zapsplat.com
Affiliates
Clearer Thinking
GuidedTrack
Mind Ease
Positly
UpLift

[Read more]

Read the full transcript here.
If you enjoy our podcast, we have some exciting news – we’ve just launched a new membership called Clearer Thinking Plus.
Members get this podcast completely ad-free, as well as two professional coaching sessions every month, access to our advanced cognitive assessment, and seven other exclusive perks.
Clearer Thinking Plus is one of the most affordable ways to get access to a high-quality coach - whether you want to improve your habits, find more effective ways to work towards your goals, or get assistance making difficult decisions. It is also a more affordable and convenient way to get all the perks we offer.
If you're not interested in coaching, you can still get ad-free access to this podcast and the other perks with our explorer plan.
Access www.clearerthinking.org/plus to become a member today. We hope to see you there!
What makes a piece of research “public property,” and what ethical obligations does that create for critics and authors alike? When a result feels wrong but you can’t locate the “smoking gun,” how should skepticism be calibrated without sliding into cynicism? How can a field avoid mistaking the absence of obvious errors for evidence that a claim is sound? What incentives cause entire literatures to form around fragile findings, and why do they persist for so long? Why do some researchers experience replication attempts as hostility, while others experience them as a gift? What norms would make constructive public criticism more common and less personally costly? How should we weigh a paper’s contribution when its analysis is flawed but its question is valuable? When is it rational to trust “the literature,” and when is the literature itself likely to be trapped in self-reinforcing error? What would it take for scientific communities to treat uncertainty as an honest output rather than a professional liability? Can a culture of open critique exist without amplifying bad-faith attacks or anti-science narratives?
Andrew Gelman, Ph.D., is Higgins Professor of Statistics, Professor of Political Science, and director of the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University.
Links:
Andrew's Substack
Staff
Spencer Greenberg — Host + Director
Ryan Kessler — Producer + Technical Lead
WeAmplify — Transcriptionists
Igor Scaldini — Marketing Consultant
Music
Broke for Free
Josh Woodward
Lee Rosevere
Quiet Music for Tiny Robots
wowamusic
zapsplat.com
Affiliates
Clearer Thinking
GuidedTrack
Mind Ease
Positly
UpLift

[Read more]