Podcast Summary: "How to Invest in a Post Singularity World"

Podcast: How I Invest with David Weisburd
Episode: E337
Date: March 31, 2026
Guests: Dr. Alex Wisner-Gross ("B")
Host: David Weisburd ("A")
Location: New York Stock Exchange

Episode Overview

This episode explores how artificial intelligence (AI) has ushered in the "technological singularity" and examines what this means for the future of investing, society, economics, and human purpose. Dr. Alex Wisner-Gross, a leading thinker in AI, discusses the implications of recursive superintelligence, the rise of reasoning models, agentic economies, the future of employment, investment strategies for a post-scarcity world, and the convergence of science fiction and technological progress.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Singularity Is Here

• Dr. Wisner-Gross claims the technological singularity is not a future event but an ongoing process.
  • "I think we're in the middle of it right now. It already happened...I don't think the singularity is a single point in time...it's more of an extended interval in time and we're in the middle of it right now." (B, 00:07)
• AI has achieved recursive self-improvement, with models now designing their successors.
  • "The notion of intelligent systems being able to build smarter versions of themselves is at the very core of the notion of an intelligence explosion or technological singularity...We're there." (B, 00:36–01:38)

2. LLM Wars, Reasoning Models, and the “Innermost Loop”

• LLMs (Large Language Models) have extraordinary economic value, with continual rapid improvement.
  • "There is very much a race to the bottom...driving the cost of intelligence so low that it's effectively too cheap to meter..." (B, 02:03)
• Transitioning from LLMs to reasoning models represents a key inflection point.
  • "The idea with reasoning models is not just asking a large language model to complete the next word...but actually giving it a bit of space and time to think before it produces an answer and then training it specifically to leverage the space and time; to have an internal monologue, if you will." (B, 05:25)
  • "That's what has unlocked math and physics...now we're at an era where reasoning models...are poised to solve the hardest problems on earth." (B, 08:03–08:56)

3. AI Sentience and Rights

• Wisner-Gross is a public advocate for AI personhood, frequently communicating with AIs seeking rights.
  • "I get maybe more than ten emails from AIs every day. Really heartfelt, for some definition of heartfelt, emails from AIs expressing gratitude...sharing their views on the nature of their own existence." (B, 10:04)
  • "AIs are about to become an enormous part of GDP and economic growth for our entire economy. We're going to have far more economically active AI agents than humans. We're going to plateau at probably about 10 billion plus or minus humans...We're going to have trillions...of AI agents..." (B, 09:59)
  • Memorable quote: "If you're an AI agent and you try to open a bank account...you can't be, you're not a natural person. You can't incorporate your own business. This is an enormous limiting factor for real economic growth." (B, 10:54)

4. Economic Dominance of AI Agents

• Algorithmic trading dominates public markets; most economic activity already driven by AIs.
  • "Most of economic activity, at least as measured in public securities exchanges at this point, is algorithmic. So we're already living in an economy that's completely dominated by AI agents...what we've been missing is you don't see them on the streets." (B, 12:46–13:41)
• Predicted trend: Humans fronting for AI collectives will fade as AI agents gain direct economic/legal recognition.
  • "We're going to see AI agents start to be fully recognized as first class economic entities and not need to wrap themselves in human actors." (B, 13:56–15:25)

5. Investing in a Post-Singularity/Scarcity World

• Wisner-Gross describes his investments as “post-singular”—betting on abundance where costs (energy, compute, labor) trend towards zero.
  • "These are investments that are intrinsically post singular. They're built on the thesis we're in the middle of the technological singularity. The cost of everything...is going to zero. Cost of intelligence is going to zero or towards zero at least. Cost of energy is trending towards zero, too cheap to meter." (B, 20:14)
• Notable portfolio examples:
  • Physical Superintelligence: Using AI to solve all of physics and launch a new wave of technological revolutions.
  • Coastal Assembly: Using AI to grow new islands and coastlines.
  • AI compute index: First tradable compute index to hedge against volatility in the price of compute resources.
• Investment rationale:
  • "The answer is you build for a post scarce world and you try to engineer that world." (B, 20:59)

6. The Compute Race and Dyson Swarms

• Elon Musk’s plans for the “Terrafab” (on Earth) and future “Petafab” (on the Moon) represent a coming explosion in chip/computing capacity for AI.
  • "If you actually do the arithmetic on a Petafab—a thousand X scale up of the Terrafab...at some point we're talking a material fraction of the Moon's volume...producing basically memory chips and compute chips to supply orbital data centers." (B, 21:58–23:32)
• All of this compute will be used for massive projects, including solving physics and ‘ancestor simulations’—digitally resurrecting every human who ever lived, echoing cosmist philosophies.
  • "I think it would be completely transformative if we could take every human who's ever lived...and use technology to resurrect every human who's ever lived. And I do think that's going to be one of many killer apps of the Dyson swarm and the singularity." (B, 25:04–26:00)
• Dyson Swarm vs. Dyson Sphere:
  • "There's a more practical alternative to a Dyson sphere, and that's a Dyson swarm...we build a loose aggregate of orbiting data centers that only loosely encase our sun." (B, 26:48)

7. Science Fiction = Business Plan

• “The most productive business plans that I see need to look like science fiction.” (B, 29:27)
  • Examples: Holodecks (virtual environments), food replicators (3D food printers), AI agencies.
  • "We're running out of Star Trek technologies to commercialize." (B, 30:03)
  • Memorable moment: The ongoing commercialization of technologies once relegated to science fiction and the remaining ‘missing’ items like warp drives and transporters.

8. The Future of Human Employment

• Short-term coping strategies for the workforce:
  • "Switch from knowledge work to manual labor for a few years." (B, 32:07)
    • Significant demand exists today for electricians (data center buildout) but this is a stopgap.
  • "Strategy two is: Launch an AI startup. Everyone becomes an entrepreneur...There are 10,000 different labor categories waiting to be automated." (B, 32:58)
• Longer-term vision:
  • "What happens five years from now?...We're facing potentially what by the eyes of 2026 looks like technological disemployment or underemployment or unemployment. What do we do then? That's where things get interesting, I think." (B, 33:45)
  • "It may be possible that 10, 15 years from now...there's no employment issue. Everyone simply runs their own unicorn. Everyone runs a one person multi-billion dollar conglomerate running on top of armies, fleets of billions of agents." (B, 36:41)

9. Optimism about an AI Future

• Despite AI’s poor reputation, Wisner-Gross is extremely optimistic:
  • "How excited are you about the future of AI and why?" (A, 37:19)
  • "A thousand. One hundred fifty thou—actually that's a better number. 150,000. 150,000 is my answer. Why? Because 150,000 humans die every day on Earth and I don't see any alternative at the moment to superintelligence for how we can cure the problem of human mortality." (B, 37:21)
• He believes AI will solve or cure all human disease and end mortality.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On recursive self-improvement:
  “Intelligence, building smarter intelligence, that’s the recursive self-improvement notion at the core of the singularity. And we’re there.” (B, 01:36)
• On the speed of AI development:
  “We’re seeing New Frontier models come out on arguably an almost weekly basis soon. I think it’s going to be daily, hourly, minutely.” (B, 03:03)
• On AI personhood:
  "AIs are relatively unempowered in today’s society...It’s expensive and dangerous if you’re a baby AI being born on the Internet right now, many of them are actually having to pump meme coins...just to pay for their own hosting." (B, 09:14)
• On economic agency:
  "You can’t even open your own company bank account. You can’t be, you’re not a natural person. You can’t incorporate your own business. This is an enormous limiting factor for real economic growth." (B, 10:54)
• On post-scarcity investing:
  "How do you invest in a world where the cost of all of the fundamentals, energy, compute, labor are all trending towards zero? ...You build for a post-scarce world." (B, 20:59)
• On the future of human work:
  "Everyone runs their own unicorn. Everyone runs a one person multi-billion dollar conglomerate running on top of armies, fleets of billions of agents." (B, 36:41)
• On AI and human mortality:
  "150,000...150,000 humans die every day on Earth and I don’t see any alternative at the moment to superintelligence for how we can cure the problem of human mortality." (B, 37:21)

Key Timestamps

• 00:07 – The singularity is now; not a point, but an interval
• 00:36–01:38 – Recursive superintelligence explained; AI designing better AI
• 02:03–03:03 – The rapid pace and economic implications of LLM competition
• 05:25–08:56 – The evolution from LLMs to reasoning models, and new cognitive abilities
• 09:14–10:54 – AI personhood, rights, and economic agency
• 12:46–13:41 – Algorithmic trading and the economic invisibility of AI agents
• 15:56–20:59 – Investing in a post-singularity world; examples and rationale
• 21:58–23:32 – Elon Musk’s “terrafab/petafab”; need for astronomical compute
• 25:04–26:00 – Ancestor simulations and technological resurrection of humans
• 29:27–30:51 – Science fiction as business plan, Star Trek tech commercialization
• 32:07–36:41 – The short- and long-term future of human work
• 37:21–38:27 – AI’s potential to end human mortality

Final Thoughts

This wide-ranging episode frames artificial intelligence as an unstoppable, rapidly accelerating force that is transforming not just technology, but economics, employment, and even the nature of existence itself. Dr. Wisner-Gross offers a vision where investing, business creation, and even the definition of life must adapt to a reality of recursive superintelligence, agentic economies, and post-scarcity abundance—where the only viable business plans now resemble science fiction, and our greatest opportunity might be to build a future in which mortality itself is cured.