Good point, I think it comes down to this being a short opening talk among many at an art/media festival. Not much room to be nuanced and expand on ideas when sharing the scene with these guys if you want to leave a mark on the audience. Apparently he wrote a longer piece in a Swedish magazine which I will try to find, and there's also a research project planned.
GDP/"growth" is a metric. Everyone wants to use the metrics that best reflect their values. I seriously doubt any mainstream economists are going to start using the Social Progress Index any time soon but that doesn't make it invalid. So in a way, yeah, "money" is failing... but it's more accurate to say that the value system of the world economic community is failing. Which people like this have been saying since 1900 AD.