Paul Krugman on AI, Superconductors, and Why Alien Invasions Are Inflationary

We live in a time in which the news can feel very sci-fi. We have computers that can talk like human beings, and maybe even can think in some way. We have people claiming that evidence exists of alien life or UFOs. And at least for awhile there, the entire internet was staring at floating rocks, and trying to figure out whether scientists had discovered the holy grail of room temperature superconductors.

So how should we think about all of these phenomenon? And what would it mean for the economy if these things were to ever bear out? To answer these questions, we turned to Paul Krugman, who has long cited his childhood love of science fiction with getting him interested in economics.