AI will profoundly change religious practice by becoming a primary source for spiritual guidance, counseling, and theological knowledge, bypassing traditional clergy. This will lead to more personalized, solo religious experiences and the evolution of AI oracles, creating a form of "implicit polytheism."
Contrary to fears of mass unemployment, AI will create new industries and roles. While transitional unemployment will occur, the demand for more energy, AI-related regulation (e.g., government lawyers), and new leisure sectors will generate significant job growth, offsetting the displacement from automation.
As AI makes information and basic skills universally accessible (e.g., perfect cover letters), the most valuable assets become "secrets"—institutional knowledge, network access, and interpersonal information that LLMs cannot access. This will incentivize professionals to hoard this non-public information as their primary currency.
The recent surge in gold and silver prices is not a sign of imminent U.S. financial collapse. Instead, it reflects investors' desperate search for a non-correlated hedge now that Bitcoin has proven to be correlated with U.S. equities. This "nowhere else to go" dynamic paradoxically reinforces the dollar's relative strength.
The Fed's most critical future task is not traditional monetary policy but prudential supervision of AI in finance. The Fed chair must lead the effort to understand and create oversight for novel systemic risks emerging from AI adoption by financial institutions, rather than getting distracted by unrelated political issues like green energy.
Tyler Cowen argues that Kevin Warsh is a political operator whose past economic stances are less predictive of his future actions than his desire to navigate the political landscape, particularly his relationship with Trump. Warsh's personal wealth from the Lauder family gives him the freedom to act independently if necessary, making his political calculus the key variable.