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Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

283 | Daron Acemoglu on Technology, Inequality, and Power

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

Sean Carroll | Wondery

Society & Culture, Physics, Philosophy, Science, Ideas, Society

4.84.4K Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2024

⏱️ 78 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Change is scary. But sometimes it can all work out for the best. There's no guarantee of that, however, even when the change in question involves the introduction of a powerful new technology. Today's guest, Daron Acemoglu, is a political economist who has long thought about the relationship between economics and political institutions. In his most recent book (with Simon Johnson), Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity, he looks at how technological innovations affect the economic lives of ordinary people. We talk about how such effects are often for the worse, at least to start out, until better institutions are able to eventually spread the benefits more broadly.

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Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2024/07/22/283-daron-acemoglu-on-technology-inequality-and-power/

Daron Acemoglu received a Ph.D. in economics from the London School of Economics. He is currently Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Econometric Society. Among his awards are the John Bates Clark Medal and the Nemmers Prize in Economics. In 2015, he was named the most cited economist of the past 10 years.


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Transcript

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0:00.0

If you or someone you care about has cancer,

0:02.8

McMillan Cancer Support's online community is here to help from day one.

0:07.4

McMillan's free online forum provides a safe space to get support from both experts

0:12.4

and others who've been there.

0:14.0

Members support each other anonymously, sharing what's helped them on a range of subjects,

0:19.0

from dealing with side effects such as hair loss and fatigue,

0:22.0

to money worries and managing work or talking with

0:25.1

children about a diagnosis.

0:27.2

There are different forums on cancer types or experiences, opportunities to ask an expert

0:32.1

and blog post.

0:33.0

Find support 24-7 from people who get what it's like to have cancer.

0:38.0

To join, search McMillan online community.

0:41.0

Hello everyone and welcome to the Mindscape Podcast.

0:44.0

I'm your host Sean Carroll.

0:46.0

As I'm recording this, I recently saw a tweet that tagged me by Gary Marcus, previous Mindscape guest, where he is retweeting a little

0:57.5

clip of an interview with Sam Altman, the CEO of Open AI, the AI company responsible for GPT and other various services, in which Altman says,

1:08.5

he doesn't make a firm prediction, but he asks us to imagine a day coming soon when you can just go to the

1:15.6

computer and say solve all of physics and it will be able to do it. Now both

1:22.1

Gary and also I if you have been listening to anything I have to say about AI,

1:26.7

do not think that that moment is anywhere near. It certainly doesn't really betray an intimate knowledge of how physics works or what you need to solve all of physics, which includes things like experimental input, not just a large language model, but you know, maybe someday, maybe not nearly, but

1:46.7

someday something like that could happen.

1:48.8

It's absolutely plausible that AI kinds of models might help us increase the pace of scientific progress.

...

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