Dylan Matthews
Journalist who covered economics, tax policy and philanthropy at Vox from 2014 to 2025, and before that at the Washington Post; writes a personal Substack.
Dylan Matthews did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
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Their wordsThe rapid success of deep learning wasn't something that even most computer scientists anticipated, or at least they didn't anticipate it scaling to the point we've seen now.
↗The AI people have been right a lotdylanmatthews.substack.com 1st of 3 in this piece
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Our reading
The business community is disturbingly unprepared for scenarios of rapid societal change.
Their wordsThe business community turns out to be disturbingly unprepared for a lot of scenarios involving rapid societal change, as seen during COVID.
↗The AI people have been right a lotdylanmatthews.substack.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsI still personally don't think we're going to have AI-directed robot factories in the desert anytime soon.
↗The AI people have been right a lotdylanmatthews.substack.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 6 weeks earlier
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Our reading
Relying on rapid market-income growth alone is not a viable long-term strategy for reducing poverty.
Their wordsThat could not be sustained, and relying on this level of income growth persisting would not have been a viable poverty reduction strategy.
↗Poverty before the wardylanmatthews.substack.com 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsSo I continue to think the safety net programs rolled out post-1963 were both beneficial in terms of poverty (which Burkhauser and Corinth document) and probably necessary for continued improvements.
↗Poverty before the wardylanmatthews.substack.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 6 weeks earlier
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Their wordsMy provisional theory is that LLMs, as a consumer product, will push people's senses of reality closer together in a sort of mirror image of the way social media has fractured them.
↗Pro-social mediadylanmatthews.substack.com 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsThe prevalence of sycophancy gives me the most pause, since it represents a user's AI experience diverging so strongly from other users' that the AI supports outright delusions.
↗Pro-social mediadylanmatthews.substack.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 2 weeks earlier
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Their wordsI think the evidence shows that Americans at the 10th percentile of income are living vastly better lives in 2025 than they did in 1975, and the absolute poverty trends reflect this, but relative economic standing within a community matters too.
↗So It's Come to This: A Dylan Matthews Substackdylanmatthews.substack.com 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsIf you spend your whole life fighting to grow programs for the poor, and choose an effective set of strategies, the programs will, in fact, grow, and people will, in fact, benefit substantially.
↗So It's Come to This: A Dylan Matthews Substackdylanmatthews.substack.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsmaintaining living standards for the lower and middle-classes is going to require all kinds of new social insurance and welfare programs.
↗So It's Come to This: A Dylan Matthews Substackdylanmatthews.substack.com 3rd of 3 in this piece