Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei Talks Scaling Laws, AI Arms Races, and Radical Abundance

Erik Torenberg and Noah Smith are joined by Dario Amodei, CEO and Co-founder of Anthropic. Dario talks about the economics of AI development, the comparative advantage of AI companies like Anthropic, AI safety, and his stance on California’s SB 1047 bill. They also discuss the impacts of AI on global power dynamics, competition between the US and China, and inequality in an AI-powered world. This episode is originally from Turpentine’s show Econ 102. Check it out for more like this: @ECON102Podcast If you have any feedback or requests for what you’d like to see on Upstream, let us know in the comments! — 🔥 Apply to join over 400 founders and Execs in the Turpentine Network: — MORE RECOMMENDED PODCASTS: 🎙️@oneto100podcast | Hypergrowth Companies Worth Joining Every week we sit down with the founder of a hyper-growth company you should consider joining. Our goal is to give you the inside story behind breakout, early stage companies potentially worth betting your career on. This season, discover how the founders of Modal Labs, Clay, Mercor, and more built their products, cultures, and companies. Spotify: Apple: 🎙️@History102-qg5oj with WhatifAltHist Every week, creator of WhatifAltHist Rudyard Lynch and Erik Torenberg cover a major topic in history in depth -- in under an hour. This season will cover classical Greece, early America, the Vikings, medieval Islam, ancient China, the fall of the Roman Empire, and more. Subscribe on Spotify: Apple: YouTube: @History102-qg5oj — SPONSORS: 🌐 Ready to achieve your 2024 goals? Start learning a new language with Babbel in just three weeks. Enjoy app lessons, live classes, and podcasts designed for real-world conversations. Get up to 60% off at Get first-party targeting with Brave’s private ad platform: cookieless and future proof ad formats for all your business needs. Performance meets privacy. Head to and mention “MoZ” when signing up for a 25% discount on your first campaign. 💥 Head to Squad to access global engineering without the headache and at a fraction of the cost: head to and mention “Turpentine” to skip the waitlist. — LINKS: Anthropic: Noahpinion: — FOLLOW ON X: @noahpinion @eriktorenberg @anthropicAI @turpentinemedia — TIMESTAMPS: (00:00) Intro (04:23) Dario’s intellectual evolution (06:37) Is Google the Bell Labs of Al? (10:07) Economic moats in Al (12:35) Scaling hypothesis and Al’s future (17:05) National security and Al (19:04) Leopold Aschenbrenner’s essay (20:33) Al’s impact on business models (26:30) Noah’s big thesis (29:32) Sponsors: Babbel | Brave (31:58) Al arms races? (36:17) Al’s impact on labor and skill distribution (40:41) Sponsor: Squad (44:35) Future of Al and a hyperscaling world (41:42) A vision of radical abundance (49:55) Al safety and inequality (54:06) The SB 1047 debate (58:56) Rabbit alignment problem (01:01:25) Wrap