✨🔬 Acceleration though AI-automated R&D: My chat (+transcript) with researcher Tom Davidson

About this episode

The episode discusses the potential of AI as a super research assistant and its implications for scientific progress.

My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers in America and around the world: What really gets AI optimists excited isn’t the prospect of automating customer service departments or human resources. Imagine, rather, what might happen to the pace of scientific progress if AI becomes a super research assistant. Tom Davidson ’s new paper, How Quick and Big Would a Software Intelligence Explosion Be? , explores that very scenario. Today on Faster, Please! — The Podcast , I talk with Davidson about what it would mean for automated AI researchers to rapidly improve their own algorithms, thus creating a self-reinforcing loop of innovation. We talk about the economic effects of self-improving AI research and how close we are to that reality. Davidson is a senior research fellow at Forethought , where he explores AI and explosive growth. He was previously a senior research fellow at Open Philanthropy and a research scientist at the UK government’s AI Security Institute . In This Episode * Making human minds (1:43) * Theory to reality (6:45) * The world with automated research (10:59) * Considering constraints (16:30) * Worries and what-ifs (19:07) Below is a lightly edited transcript…

People in this episode

Host: James Pethokoukis

Guest: Tom Davidson

Topics covered

• AI research
• scientific progress
• automation
• economic effects
• innovation
• self-improving AI

Keywords

• AI
• research
• automation
• economic growth
• innovation
• self-improvement
• scientific progress

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Forethought, Open Philanthropy, UK government’s AI Security Institute

Books & works: How Quick and Big Would a Software Intelligence Explosion Be?

More episodes of Faster, Please! — The Podcast

• ✨💪 The future of work in an age of AI: My chat with economist Daniel Rock · April 28, 2026 · 28 min
• 🏗️ A hub for hard-tech startups: My chat with 'American Shenzhen' builder Joshua Farahzad · April 10, 2026 · 20 min
• ✨ The Age of AI, an update: My chat with policy analyst Dean Ball · March 24, 2026 · 43 min
• 🌎 Storm watch: My chat with climate policy expert Roger Pielke Jr. · February 19, 2026 · 35 min
• ☄️Awaiting apocalypse: My chat with journalist and author Dorian Lynskey · February 4, 2026 · 27 min
• ⤴️ Beyond Abundance: My chat with Brink Lindsey about his new book, 'The Permanent Problem' · January 30, 2026 · 32 min