ForeCast

Sam Hammond is is Chief Economist at the Foundation for American Innovation. He discusses:

How collapsing transaction costs could push towards privatising the nation-state

The “distributed denial of service” problem for courts and regulators

Why perfect enforcement of existing laws would be effectively totalitarian

Estonia's government-as-API as a model for AI-era governance

Whether 20th-century social democracy was a technological aberration

Why post-AGI states might look more like Dubai than Denmark

Mormons, religion, and social scaffolding for a post-scarcity world

Watch the video version on YouTube.

Read a full transcript here.

To see all Forethought’s published research, visit forethought.org/research. To subscribe to our newsletter, visit forethought.org/subscribe.

This is an AI narration of "Design sketches for a more sensible world" by Owen Cotton-Barratt, Lizka Vaintrob, Oly Sourbut, and Rose Hadshar. The article was first released on 5th February 2026.

You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

This is an AI narration of "Design Sketches: Angels-on-the-Shoulder" by Owen Cotton-Barratt, Lizka Vaintrob, Oly Sourbut, and Rose Hadshar. The article was first released on 29th January 2026.

You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

Rose Hadshar is a researcher at Forethought. She discusses:

Why governments might pursue an international AGI government

The chance that the first AGI developer becomes a de facto world government

The "Intelsat model" – treating AGI as commercial infrastructure rather than a weapon or science project

Membership and voting structures that might make a US-led coalition viable

The "AGI convention" proposal

Watch the video version on YouTube.

Read a full transcript here.

To see all Forethought’s published research, visit forethought.org/research. To subscribe to our newsletter, visit forethought.org/subscribe.

This is an AI narration of "International AI projects and differential AI development" by William MacAskill. The article was first released on 26th January 2026.

You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.