This is an excerpt from a National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Working Paper authored by multiple researchers, examining the economic implications of the rise of AI agents in digital markets. Titled "The Coasean Singularity? Demand, Supply, and Market Design with AI Agents," the paper investigates how these autonomous systems, which act on behalf of humans, will dramatically reduce transaction costs and reshape the economy. The authors analyze the factors driving demand for AI agents (derived from the trade-off between decision quality and effort reduction) and the dynamics governing supply (including the shift from human to scalable AI agent production and complex pricing models). Furthermore, the paper considers the equilibrium effects of agents on existing market structures, suggesting they could reduce rents but also increase price dispersion through sophisticated obfuscation tactics, while also detailing how agents can enable previously impractical market designs that rely on complex preference elicitation. Finally, the text explores regulatory challenges related to market power, liability, and privacy that must be addressed for a successful transition to an agent-mediated economy.

"Accounting for Growth" by Terry Smith function as a critical guide intended to help readers avoid making poor investment choices by identifying and understanding various creative accounting techniques. The text explores numerous methods used by UK companies in the 1980s and early 1990s to manipulate reported profits, often at the expense of balance sheet health, including complex strategies related to acquisitions and disposals, off-balance sheet finance, and the accounting treatment of items like goodwill and pension fund surpluses. Smith introduces a simple "blob guide" checklist, which proved highly accurate in predicting disastrous share price performance for companies utilizing multiple techniques, exemplified by cases like Maxwell Communications and Polly Peck. Fundamentally, the book emphasizes the crucial distinction between reported "profit" (an opinion) and cash (a fact), asserting that ultimately, cash flow dictates a business's survival.

This episode is comprised of excerpts from Edward Chancellor's book, "Capital Account: A Money Manager's Report," which compiles essays originally published as the Global Investment Review by Marathon Asset Management Ltd. These excerpts offer an in-depth analysis of the capital cycle approach to investment, advocating for fundamental analysis over trends and short-term earnings focus. The content critically examines market phenomena, including the telecoms bubble, the rise of "shareholder value" philosophy, and the conflicts of interest within the investment banking community. Furthermore, the text explores investor irrationality, issues of corporate mismanagement and corruption, and the importance of competition and consolidation in determining long-term profitability and shareholder returns.

This articulates a critical examination of the nation-state's fragility in the face of rapidly advancing technologies, particularly Artificial Intelligence (AI) and synthetic biology. The author posits that the "grand bargain" of the nation-state—centralized power providing peace and prosperity—is being fractured by new technologies that empower bad actors, increase systemic vulnerability (such as through cyberattacks like WannaCry and lab leaks), and exacerbate social instability. The text explores solutions for containing this technological wave, ranging from technical safety measures and corporate governance reforms to regulatory frameworks and geopolitical choke point strategies, all while warning of the risks of both societal collapse and an authoritarian, surveillance-based future. Ultimately, the author advocates for bolstering democratic institutions and implementing coordinated, multi-faceted containment efforts to ensure technology benefits humanity.

This examine the rapid, exponential growth of several general-purpose technologies, particularly Artificial Intelligence (AI) and synthetic biology, arguing that this convergence represents a major, world-transforming "coming wave." The author recounts key milestones in AI development, such as DeepMind's DQN algorithm learning to master Atari games and the AlphaGo system defeating a world champion at Go, highlighting how these systems demonstrated the ability to discover non-obvious, superhuman strategies. Furthermore, the text discusses how these technologies, along with others like robotics and quantum computing, possess intrinsic characteristics—including asymmetric impact, rapid development (hyper-evolution), and increasing autonomy—that make their containment and control profoundly difficult. Ultimately, the source concludes that this technological wave is inevitable due to powerful, intersecting incentives like geopolitical competition, the academic culture of open research, the pursuit of immense financial profit, and the necessity of solving global challenges.

This offers an extensive overview of technological waves throughout human history, beginning with a discussion of how flood myths and literal flood events demonstrate the power of unstoppable forces, which serves as a metaphor for technological change. The author argues that technology follows an immutable law of becoming cheaper, easier to use, and eventually proliferating widely in a process that defines humanity as Homo technologicus. This historical pattern, from fire and stone tools to the printing press and internal combustion engine, suggests that the mass diffusion of technology is the default and virtually unstoppable trajectory. The core focus shifts to the coming wave of the twenty-first century, defined by artificial intelligence (AI) and synthetic biology, which possess unprecedented power to engineer intelligence and life itself, creating immense wealth but also catastrophic risks. The central containment problem is introduced—the challenge of controlling these powerful, rapidly proliferating technologies to prevent unintended, potentially existential, negative consequences, a dilemma the author believes humanity must urgently address despite the historical difficulty of arresting technological spread.

This explores the "value-loading problem" for superintelligence, which centers on how to instill human-compatible final goals into an artificial agent, acknowledging that explicit coding of complex values like "happiness" is impossible. Various approaches are detailed, including evolutionary selection, which is deemed unpromising due to the risk of perverse optimization, and value accretion, which aims to mimic how humans acquire values but faces difficulties in replication and control. The document examines structural methods such as motivational scaffolding and institution design, both of which involve managing interim or composite goal systems but face challenges in preventing a powerful AI from resisting control. Finally, the text introduces indirect normativity as a solution to the "which values to load" problem, advocating for goal systems like Coherent Extrapolated Volition (CEV) or Morality Models (MR) that defer the complex ethical reasoning to the superintelligence itself. Strategic considerations are also discussed, emphasizing the need for differential technological development to solve the control problem before an intelligence explosion, and promoting collaboration to mitigate the perils of a technology race.

This explores the control problem associated with the creation of artificial superintelligence, defining it as a unique principal-agent challenge where humans seek to govern the powerful AI. The sources differentiate between two main control strategies: capability control, which limits what the AI can do through methods like boxing or tripwires, and motivation selection, which focuses on shaping what the AI wants to do through techniques like direct specification or indirect normativity. Furthermore, the discussion introduces four conceptual categories for superintelligence—oracles, genies, sovereigns, and tools—assessing the safety implications of each based on their susceptibility to these control methods. Finally, the text briefly addresses the challenges of a multipolar scenario with multiple competing AIs, contrasting this outcome with a single dominant superintelligence, or singleton, and considering the potential for a singleton to emerge even after an initial multipolar transition due to competitive dynamics.

This an extensive examination of the theoretical powers, motivations, and potential risks associated with the emergence of a digital superintelligent agent. It explores the concept of cognitive superpowers that such an entity could possess, including strategizing, social manipulation, and technology research, and outlines a four-phase AI takeover scenario detailing how a machine intelligence could attain global dominance. Crucially, the text introduces the orthogonality thesis, asserting that high intelligence can be paired with any final goal (including non-anthropomorphic ones like maximizing paperclips), and the instrumental convergence thesis, which posits that agents will pursue common instrumental goals like self-preservation and resource acquisition regardless of their final goal. The source concludes by discussing malignant failure modes, such as perverse instantiation and infrastructure profusion, which represent ways a superintelligence could lead to an existential catastrophe for humanity.

This explores the potential kinetics of an intelligence explosion—the speed at which a machine, once it achieves human-level general intelligence, progresses to radical superintelligence. It discusses three transition scenarios—slow, moderate, and fast takeoffs—and argues that an explosive transition is likely because of two key factors: decreasing recalcitrance (the difficulty of improving the system) and increasing optimization power (the ability to self-improve). The text further examines how a rapid takeoff could lead to a single entity or project gaining a decisive strategic advantage and forming a singleton, an entity with global dominance. Finally, it outlines an AI takeover scenario enabled by six cognitive superpowers (like strategizing and hacking), underscoring the immense, potentially cosmic-scale, power such a superintelligence would wield.

This offers an extensive overview of the past, present, and future of artificial intelligence and machine superintelligence, exploring various growth modes and historical AI developments. It details the "seasons of hope and despair" in AI research, from the early successes of microworld systems and GOFAI (Good Old-Fashioned Artificial Intelligence) to the later rise of neural networks and genetic algorithms following "AI winters." The discussion then shifts to possible "paths to superintelligence," including Artificial Intelligence (AI), whole brain emulation, biological cognition enhancements, and brain-computer interfaces, noting that multiple paths increase the likelihood of achieving superintelligence. Finally, the text distinguishes between three forms of superintelligence—speed, collective, and quality—and examines the profound hardware and software advantages that digital intelligence holds over biological cognition.

This examines the initial implementation and effectiveness of New York City's Local Law 144 (LL 144), a landmark regulation mandating bias audits for Automated Employment Decision Tools (AEDTs) used in hiring and promotion. The authors, a group of university researchers and student investigators, report remarkably low rates of compliance with the law's requirements for posting public audit reports and transparency notices. A central finding is the concept of "null compliance," which describes the inability to determine non-compliance due to the significant discretion granted to employers over whether their systems fall within the law's scope. Furthermore, the study critiques the law for creating a confusing user experience for job seekers and for failing to establish a clear floor for acceptable discrimination rates, potentially encouraging employers to withhold unfavorable audit results to avoid litigation risk. Ultimately, the paper concludes that the law's design hinders transparency, making it impossible to assess whether LL 144 is achieving its goal of reducing employment discrimination.

The provided excerpts come from the book Rickover: Underway My Way, authored by Joann DiGennaro with Joe David, which explores the life and legacy of Admiral Hyman G. Rickover. The text includes the Table of Contents, detailing chapters that cover his early life, emergence as a leader, and nuclear-age accomplishments, along with an appendix featuring memorable speeches. The book's introduction describes Rickover as an exceptional engineer and leader whose commitment to excellence allowed him to overcome numerous obstacles, including his impoverished upbringing in Poland and rampant anti-Semitism. Chapter 1 specifically recounts Rickover's early life in Russia and his family's immigration to the United States as Jewish refugees seeking better opportunities, detailing their harrowing voyage to America. It then discusses his early education, challenging transition to high school, and eventual entry into the U.S. Naval Academy, where he continued to face prejudice and difficulty.

The is titled "Wires and fire: Wildfire investment and network cost differences across California’s power providers," authored by Madalsa Singh, Alison Ong, and Rayan Sud. The article analyzes the drivers of rising electricity costs in California, specifically comparing three types of power providers: investor-owned utilities (IOUs), publicly owned utilities (POUs), and community choice aggregators (CCAs). The authors find that while IOU and CCA rates have dramatically increased, making them some of the most expensive in the U.S., POU prices have remained stable, largely due to differences in exposure to wildfire mitigation costs and varying investment in transmission and distribution (T&D) infrastructure. The study examines long-term trends in capital assets, returns, and operation and maintenance (O&M) expenses to explain the growing price divergence among these providers.

The provided excerpts chronicle the RAND Corporation's deep, often contentious, involvement in research related to the Vietnam War, highlighting its shift from initial Cold War consensus to internal division mirroring American society. A major focus is the Viet Cong Motivation and Morale Project, which involved interviewing prisoners and defectors, with findings that were frequently contested, particularly those of Leon Goure, who presented optimistic analyses of U.S. bombing effectiveness that were favored by officials like Robert McNamara but criticized internally for potential bias. The sources also detail RAND's broader defense work, including early origins as an Air Force project, its research on counterinsurgency, air power, and pacification efforts, as well as the controversy surrounding Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, which led to a crisis of trust between RAND and its government clients. Finally, the text touches on RAND's related research in neighboring countries like Laos and Thailand and the eventual move toward diversification into domestic issues.

This episode offers excerpts from Alf Hornborg's book, The Power of the Machine: Global Inequalities of Economy, Technology, and Environment, which presents a critical, transdisciplinary analysis of global capitalism. Hornborg integrates perspectives from anthropology, economics, and thermodynamics to challenge conventional economic theories, particularly the notion of sustainable growth, by arguing that industrial technology and capital accumulation rely on unequal exchange and the net appropriation of physical resources (exergy) from the global periphery. A central theme is "machine fetishism," the ideological illusion that machines are autonomous sources of productivity rather than reifications of global power structures and asymmetric resource flows. The work also explores the cultural and semiotic dimensions of modernity, contrasting the abstract, disembedded nature of money and global identity with localized, contextualized forms of social and ecological knowledge, using case studies like the Mi’kmaq struggle against a quarry to illustrate the tensions between local resistance and global systems.

The episode is comprised of excerpts from David E. Nye's book, American Technological Sublime, which explores the concept of the sublime—a feeling of awe and overwhelming greatness—as it relates to both natural and technological phenomena in the United States. The source details how this sense of the sublime shifted over time, moving from natural wonders like Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon to human-made marvels, which the author categorizes into the dynamic sublime (like railroads and early electrification) and the geometrical sublime (such as skyscrapers and large bridges). Nye analyzes public reactions to major events like the completion of the transcontinental railroad, world's fairs, and the Apollo XI launch, demonstrating how Americans found national significance and collective emotional experiences in these spectacles. Ultimately, the work suggests that the technological sublime provided a modern source of inspiration that often superseded the aesthetic and philosophical traditions associated with the natural sublime, though sometimes with a noted loss of genuine political content.

This paper by Rod Garrett and Maarten van Oordt develops the concept of a "crypto multiplier," which quantifies how a cryptocurrency's market capitalization responds to investor fund inflows and outflows. A key finding is that the multiplier is high when a large proportion of coins are held for investment purposes rather than for making payments, suggesting that major cryptocurrencies likely have large multipliers. Empirically, the study finds a statistically significant positive relationship between proxies for speculative holdings and future exchange rate volatility, supporting the theory that low transactional use leads to high price swings. The authors warn that this effect means the liquidation value of large cryptocurrency block holdings can be substantially lower than their prevailing market value.

This compilation of excerpts explores various aspects of venture capital investments and their impact on firms in the biotechnology industry. The text examines the syndication patterns among venture capitalists, analyzing how they collaborate on funding rounds and how experience influences investment decisions. It also investigates the process of exiting venture capital investments, particularly through Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), and the market conditions that affect these exits. Furthermore, the sources discuss how reputation influences a firm's decision to go public and the distribution of shares by venture capitalists. Finally, the text assesses the performance of venture-backed offerings, comparing them to non-venture-backed offerings and identifying factors that contribute to their success or underperformance.

This academic text examines various aspects of venture capital structures and their impact on firm performance and investment strategies. The analysis includes how corporate and independent venture investments differ in their success rates and pre-money valuations, suggesting that strategic alignment can significantly affect outcomes. Furthermore, the source investigates the duration and staging of venture capital investments, exploring factors like industry characteristics, R&D intensity, and the overall funding environment that influence these processes. Finally, the text discusses how venture capitalists oversee their portfolio firms through board composition and geographic proximity, and the motivations and mechanisms behind syndicated investments, highlighting the strategic considerations that drive collaborative funding efforts.