Let's say the AI, let's say for the sake
of argument that it that it will be a
third industrial revolution.
Obviously, the second industrial
revolution from 1870 to 1900 or so, I
think it tripled the living standards in
the US. But what have we learned from
prior leaps in human progress and what
lessons should we apply today? And what
mistakes should we avoid? You didn't you
you're not too concerned about mistakes,
but are there lessons or are there
mistakes to avoid? How how are you how
are you thinking about this based on
history? Yeah, so look, the big thing is
for a very long time we had a model or
an ethos or an ethic of of industrial
progress. It started with like you know,
basically once upon a time it was
for for the greater glory of God it was
to discover the secrets of the universe
and nature as a way to to glorify God,
but then that that turned into what
became known as natural philosophy which
turned into science.
And then the the enlightenment hit and
then science became technology.
That became industrialization and then
you know, we had about a 250-year run or
something from basically like steam
power through basically the 1970s
where we said, "Wow, this is great. Like
we can build all these new things. We
can do electric you know, we can
electrify. We can have you know,
lighting everywhere." You know, we can
have you know, antibiotics. We can have
you know, computers. We can have cars.
You know, we we can we can build all
these amazing things. By the way, we can
build weapons, right? We can build like
you know, guns and we can have like you
know, increasingly powerful tanks and
aircraft and and so [snorts] forth.
And and we can do all these things, you
know, good and bad or you could say
maybe civilian and military or you know,
sort of pacifistic or or potentially
violent. But we we have we have all
these things that that we can do and we
should do these things. Like we should
build these things. And and by doing
that, you know, and and certainly in in
aggregate overwhelmingly we we we can
improve the world and that that created
the civilization that we live in today.
You know, I think basically things took
a bit of a left turn in the 70s with
what was a concept invented by the
German Greens at the time called the
precautionary principle. And that sort
of you know, kind of corresponded to the
rise of a lot of the kind of defining
ethical ideas of our period
you know, which basically basically
advocated a much more cautious stance.
Um
And and that's very kind of an an
evocative idea right now. Number one,
cuz it just seems so obvious to people
in our modern world that if a
technologist is going to release a new
technology, the burden should be on the
technologist to prove that the
technology is not harmful, and that's
what you keep hearing about about AI.
Um, you know, the observation that I
make is the German Greens invented that
concept in the 1970s to stop nuclear
power. Um, and I think, you know, that
the consequences of stopping nuclear
power 50 years later, you know, it's
just it was just like a catastrophic
mistake.
Um, you know, geopolitically, it's
directly connected to Russia's invasion
of Ukraine. Europe is effectively
funding Russia to invade Ukraine cuz
they keep, you know, buying oil from
them, which they wouldn't need to buy if
they were running all nuclear. And then,
of course, carbon emissions. Nuclear is
carbon, you know, zero carbon. Um, and
of course, the alternative to nuclear
and to carbon, um, you know, oil is is
is coal. And so, you know, emissions in
Europe are are right now spiking through
the roof because they're bringing all
these coal plants online. Uh, and so,
anyway, like I would argue in the last
50 years, we've we've we've played out
this experiment with the so-called
precautionary principle. It did not work
well
uh for the technology it was invented
for. I don't think it makes a lot of
sense for most of the new technologies.
There's now an attempt to apply that
that that that ethos or that rule for
AI, which I think would be another
catastrophic mistake. And as as we sit
here today, I think it it uh it's uh the
future hangs in the balance because
there's a lot of people who are pushing
for that right now.
>> And in your essay, to jump to this, I
assume everyone's read it. You know,
it's interesting to me, my my mind goes
to productivity first. My mind goes to
the fact that we haven't had
productivity growth, and this is very
bad for everyone, especially poor
people, over the last over the last few
decades. This could actually make
productivity growth go up. You actually
didn't start on productivity growth. You
started on the fact that we all get
personalized coaches and education and
all these other things. But was this
partially a rhetorical tactic to appeal
to people, or do you do you actually
think productivity growth is not the
most important thing? How how how are
you thinking about this?
Well, productivity growth is the most
important economic thing, right? Um,
productivity growth is how technology
expresses itself in the economy.
Um,
productivity growth is the source of
effectively all economic growth.
And so therefore technology is source of
practically all economic growth and
that's been the case for hundreds of
years. Like that that that just is that
that kind of is what it is. And the the
nature of the technology is obviously
changed over time but you know,
fundamentally if you just have the same
resources and the same people and you
don't have new ways of doing things
which is what technology is,
then you have stagnation. If you have
technology you have the potential for
growth.
So it's the most important economic
thing. It's therefore the most important
thing for material progress right in the
world, right? So if you just want to
make people materially better off,
you know, this is the thing that you
focus on.
But the mental health might not be
helped by this.
Well, the thing this is the thing this
is the thing. So this is kind of what we
learned in the last 100 150 years,
right? It's like just material progress
is apparently not sufficient, right?
Like it's actually really funny cuz it's
like the the Marxists were like super
focused on material progress. Like their
whole view of the world and of history
and of evolution and how things change
was based on material progress. And then
the conventional justification for
classical liberalism or for capitalism
has been, you know, progress in material
welfare. And of course what we all
experience day-to-day is progress in
material welfare. And when your kid gets
sick, you don't really want to have a,
you know, some sort of involved
conversation about ethics or morals or
whatever. What you want to have is like
a state-of-the-art hospital nearby with
all the best technology you can possibly
get. And you know, doctors and nurses
who are incredibly well incentivized and
compensated to be able to to take care
of your kid. So So
I think you're right. Like it is the
actual most important thing. It's just
it it it in our world today we don't
just that alone does not seem to win
arguments.
>> [laughter]
>> And and by the way and in fairness not
just that it doesn't address the
totality of the human condition. And so
I think it's also important to to to
address kind of higher level issues and
how humans experience life that's not
just material.
>> There's a couple ways to take that. So
first of all tell us a little bit more
like what are like what are the most
important changes in our life that are
not material? Like what what do you I
mean other than mental health? Like what
what are what are the things that
actually actually change here?
Well, yeah. So look the big one I'll
start [clears throat] with the really
big one and this this is you know,
there's a long running debate around
around this in the history of technology
industrialization but I think that this
this is the following point applies
here, which is like what kind of life,
you know, should a human being live,
right? Um and like and to be clear, like
I'm not like a UBI, I'm the opposite of
a UBI person. Like I'm not a UBI person.
I I'm not a communist.
Um I think it's a bad idea to pay people
to not work. Um I think we're running an
experiment in this country right now to
pay a lot of people not to work and it,
you know, it's sort of a big
catastrophic mistake. Um and so like I I
I I'm definitely not that. Hav- Having
said that, you know, there there is a
fundamental question, which is how what
what should the human experience be? How
should people live?
Um and in partic- and again, this is a
classic kind of argument for
industrialization,
um which is like the the the the
baseline there is I don't think people
should have to live lives of drudgery,
right? Like I don't believe people
should have to, you know, 300 years ago
the conversation would have been
agricultural technologies and I would
have said I don't think people should
live lives as as subsistence farmers,
you know, 150 to 100 years ago we would
have said I don't think people should
live life just as factory workers. Like
we should create new kinds of
white-collar jobs.
Um you know, 50 years I would have said
people shouldn't be just like stuck in
an office doing paperwork all day long,
they should use computers, right? To do
the to do the paperwork instead. Um and
then and then today what I would say is
look, most most of the drudgery of life,
most of the things and you know, like
everybody knows everybody you can, you
know, you know it when you see it,
right? It's when you show up and it's
like, okay, there's the form and there's
the thing and there's the, you know, you
open up your email and there's the 200
emails.
>> shouldn't self-service be building a few
of these bridges? Isn't that good for
them to get a little like hands-on?
Should they be using AI for all of it?
Yeah, maybe yeah, maybe at some point
they should learn how to do it by hand.
Um you know, and look, I'm I I have an
8-year-old and he is getting taught how
to like add numbers by hand.
Um and so yeah, he actually he has a
he's a he's he's actually learning
Mandarin. Um and uh so his uh Mandarin
teacher also has taught him how to use
an abacus.
Um and so you know
>> [laughter]
>> in the worst-case scenario, right, of an
EMP, you know, nuking everything, he'll
be able to at least add up numbers.
Um
so um you know, may- yeah, look, people
should get trained and like people
should have skills and we could we could
talk about that, but like should you go
through life as a human being doing
things that machines can do for you? I
think generally speaking the answer to
that is no.
You should go through life doing the
things that uniquely people can do. And
I And to be clear, I think there are
many, many, many things that people can
do.
I think people explore. I think people
create. I think people help other
people.
And I I
My aspiration would be that increased
technology and in particular AI should
basically actually make it possible to
be more human. You should be able to
spend more of your life doing things
that are human in in their nature and
human in the sense of fulfillment as
opposed to doing the things that the
machines can do for you.
And I And I look, this this is one of
those things where like if this really
works, this this really holds out that
that kind of opportunity.