Terence Corcoran: Join the debate — AI-faked Keynes vs. real Sam Altman

Skip to Content News Archives Economy Energy Oil & Gas Renewables Electric Vehicles Mining Commodities Agriculture Real Estate Mortgages Mortgage Rates Finance Banking Insurance Fintech Cryptocurrency Defence Work Wealth Smart Money Wealth Management Investor Personal Finance Family Finance Retirement Taxes High Net Worth FP Comment Executive Women Puzzmo Newsletters Financial Times Business Essentials More Innovation Information Technology FP500 Podcasts Small Business Lives Told Tails Told Shopping Financial Post Store Obituaries Place a Notice Advertising Advertising With Us Advertising Solutions Postmedia Ad Manager Sponsorship Requests Classifieds Place a Classifieds ad Working Profile Settings My Subscriptions My Offers Newsletters Customer Service FAQ News Economy Energy Mining Real Estate Finance Work Wealth Investor FP Comment Executive Women Puzzmo Newsletters Financial Times Business Essentials This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.HomeFP CommentTerence Corcoran: Join the debate — AI-faked Keynes vs. real Sam AltmanShould we be alarmed that AI 'bad things' can happen?Last updated 13 minutes ago Open AI chief executive Sam Altman before delivering the keynote address at the OpenAI developers conference at Fort Mason on Sept. 29, 2026 in San Francisco, California. Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images filesThe political, economic and ideological debate over the meaning and future of artificial intelligence keeps moving along with many people chasing the rapidly evolving technology along a twisted road to nobody knows where. Each day brings a new turn as AI haters and alarmists battle AI supporters and proponents.THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLYSubscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman, and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLESSubscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLESCreate an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountToday we take a look at two of many recent developments that pit unlikely combatants in a seemingly impossible confrontation over the future of AI technology. One is legendary economist John Maynard Keynes, the godfather of Keynesian economics who died in 1946. The other is legendary AI tech billionaire Sam Altman, who was born 40 years after Keynes died and who recently said that as AI advances it will lead to “bad things happening,” but it should not be stopped.This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.Separated by almost a century, the two global celebrities are now portrayed as modern opponents in the political struggle over the regulatory future of AI. We begin with Keynes, who appears live in a New York Times video posted last week. Well, not quite live. It’s a video of a robotic Keynes, in which he states that he is very concerned about the rise of artificial intelligence as a destructive force in the economy. In the Times piece, prepared by Princeton University economist Markus Brunnermeier, Keynes is interviewed as if he were alive today.Get the latest headlines, breaking news and columns.By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of Top Stories will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againKeynes: “Whether AI ends up as a source of broadly shared prosperity and purpose or a machine for manufacturing a new dominant class of wealthy and powerful is not preordained by the technology itself. It will be determined by your government and whether it has the political courage to use its laws and its tax systems to ensure that AI will work to the benefit of all of society’s citizens.”To get Keynes, who’s been deceased for 80 years, to address one of today’s hottest economic topics, Brunnermeier used an AI robot team to scan 12,000 pages of Keynes’s writings to create what can only be described as a fake video that claims to capture views on circumstances that are far removed from the century-old Keynes era.This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.Brunnermeier cites a 1930 Keynes essay — “The Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren” — as a reason for creating the interview. In the essay, and in his 12,000 pages of work, Keynes generally did not support government intervention, other than disciplined macro-economic policies to prevent perverse fluctuations. He usually shied away from endorsing the kind of policy moves raised in the robot interview.In the essay, written during the Great Depression, Keynes even approached the deep depression pessimism of 1930 in terms that ring true today. Deep depression pessimism, he wrote, is a “wildly mistaken interpretation“ of what is happening. Britain and the United States are in fact enduring a transition. “The increase of technical efficiency has been taking place faster than we can deal with the problem of labour absorption; the improvement in the standard of life has been a little too quick; the banking and monetary system of the world has been preventing the rate of interest from falling as fast as equilibrium requires,” he wrote.It is admittedly impossible to wade through all of Keynes’s millions of words of economic ideas, but there is no evidence that he endorsed major government intervention to block or delay technological advancements. The fake video of Keynes specifically addressing AI by name is nothing more than an entertaining technical feat, almost a comedy routine, that attempts to shape public opinion.This advertisement has not loaded yet.This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.The “Grandchildren” essay is filled with descriptive optimism about the dramatic benefits of centuries of scientific and technical breakthroughs that he believed would, and should, continue. Such change causes “technological unemployment” and other troubles, but they are only temporary because they are part of a process in which “mankind is solving its economic problem.” Over the next 100 years, he said, economic prosperity will continue, despite tech-caused joblessness and widespread pessimism.In other words, the real Keynes would almost certainly reject the fake AI Keynes. Indeed, it is more than odd that the AI search of 12,000 pages of Keynes’s economic writing could not come up with any direct quotes that would flag opposition to modern technological progress and insist on government intervention to prevent disruption. The only option was to fake an interview.Back in 1930, the real Keynes effectively endorsed the idea that the AI transition currently sweeping the world will inevitably lead to “bad things” happening — which is the language used by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in an interview released Monday by Decoded, a tech podcast created by Politico. In a discussion around OpenAI’s now notorious difficulties with rogue agents, Altman argued that, “The world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency,” which was instantly blasted by AI critics as another indicator of tech oligarch madness.This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.We apologize, but this video has failed to load.One writer said the words are evidence that Altman “isn’t afraid to throw humanity under the bus to build his dreams of a society powered by AI.” That is not, however, the meaning of the bad-things-happening statement. Altman is essentially channelling the original Keynesian “Grandchildren” position that economic change, especially technological transformations, inevitably produce negative consequences, ranging from unemployment to unintended accidents and failures, that nevertheless lead to improvements in human existence.Whether AI will live up to the claims of its promoters remains to be seen. But it is nevertheless wrong to claim that Altman and his tech colleagues want the right to throw humanity under a bus to satisfy their egotistical drive for trillionaire status and to overthrow modern society. U.S. democratic Socialist Bernie Saunders asked Altman: “What ‘bad things’ should we accept to advance AI? Losing tens of millions of jobs? A mass surveillance state? A mental health crisis for our kids? A global financial crisis? Mass extinction? Let’s not wait to find out. Pause advanced AI NOW!”This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.In Altman’s view, the AI transition should proceed as quickly as is reasonably possible. He endorsed the U.S. government’s policy, supported by AI corporations, to move cautiously with regulation. The alternative process being advocated by anti-tech activists is based on false economic, political and technological premises. If we halted progress to prevent “bad things from happening,” no progress would occur.Take, for example, the automobile. Since 1900, more than four million Americans have died in auto accidents. Altman is right. Bad things happen. Along with other AI tech firms, he reasonably argues that the corporate and government approach to future AI development should avoid controlling AI to produce an impossible alternative, totally risk-free technology. The real John Maynard Keynes would likely agree with that conclusion. Maybe somebody should run that idea through a bot.This advertisement has not loaded yet.Notice for the Postmedia NetworkThis website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.