Will AI Have a Moral Compass? — Debate with Scott Sumner, Author of The Money Illusion

Prof. Scott Sumner is a well-known macroeconomist who spent more than 30 years teaching at Bentley University, and now holds an Emeritus Chair in monetary policy at George Mason University's Mercatus Center. He's best known for his blog, the Money Illusion, which sparked the idea of Market Monetarism and NGDP targeting.

I sat down with him at LessOnline 2025 to debate why his P(Doom) is pretty low. Where does he get off the Doom Train? 🚂

00:00 Episode Preview

00:34 Introducing Scott Sumner

05:20 Is AGI Coming Soon?

09:12 Potential of AI in Various Fields

36:49 Ethical Implications of Superintelligent AI

41:03 The Nazis as an Outlier in History

43:36 Intelligence and Morality: The Orthogonality Thesis

49:03 The Risk of Misaligned AI Goals

01:09:31 Recapping Scott’s Position

Show Notes

Scott’s current blog, The Pursuit of Happiness:

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