AGI & the State

Thomas Hobbes imagined the sovereign as the ultimate source of authority: powerful enough to maintain order precisely because nothing within society could rival it. Nearly four centuries later, that assumption is starting to look less obvious. For this evening, we’re skipping the usual question: will AGI happen? Instead, we’re asking what governments should be doing to prepare for an economic and political transformation that could be unlike anything they have governed before. We'll explore questions like: Do we tax automation? Redistribute the gains through some form of AI dividend or universal income? Invest in sovereign AI infrastructure? Treat access to advanced models as a public utility? Or would attempts to manage the transition simply leave governments trying to centrally plan an economy they cannot possibly understand? Think Nassim Taleb's Antifragile & Black Swan. These might sound like questions about a new technology, but they are also very old political and philosophical problems. Rousseau asked what makes political authority legitimate. Rawls asked how the benefits of society should be distributed fairly. Hayek warned against governments attempting to control complex systems whose knowledge is dispersed among millions of individuals. None of them had AGI in mind. Joining us will be Daniel Nieto, whose career has tightroped between governments, the UN, and the private sector. With the fascinating role of advising public institutions around the world on technology transitions and AI. As always, this is not a panel. No slides pretending to know what 2040 looks like. Just one slightly inconvenient question: Are our governments ready for what's to come?