Is AI Productivity Worth Our Humanity? with Prof. Michael Sandel

Your Undivided Attention

Center for Humane Technology

Tristan Harris, Socialjustice, Tech Podcast, Character Ai, Little Tech, Ai History, Silicon Valley, Privacy, Daniel Barcay, Addiction, Ai Addiction, Chat Bots, Children And Tech, Tech Policy, Responsibleai, Tech, New Ai Shows, Screen Time, Open Ai, Elections, Kids Tech, Google, Ai And Kids, Politicsandai, Politics, Anthropic, Dataprivacy, Humans, Tech And Relationships, Us Politics, Ai And Relationships, Aiandhumanrights, Civictech, Aiinsociety, Surveillance, Sam Altman, Technopoly, Humancenteredai, Breakdown Of Trust, Ai And Work, Ai And The Future, Democracy, Futureofwork, Tech Politics, Tech Ethics, Future, Tech Addiction, Asi, Kids Phone Addiction, Best Ai Shows, Ai Regulations, Meta, Digitalgovernance, Bigtech, Ai And Happiness, Machinelearning, Screentime, Relationships, Ai Welfare, Ai Podcast, Cognitive Liberty, Infinite Scroll, Ai And Education, Kids And Ai, Ai Politics, Apple, Digitaldemocracy, Claude, Llms, Societalimpact, Artificial General Intelligence, Agi, Machines, Us Society, Politicaltechnology, Disinformation, Ai And Rights, Elon Musk, Government, Aiaccountability, Polarization, Jon Haidt, Algorithmicbias, Ai Personhood, Kids Online Safety, Superintelligence, Techandsociety, Automation, Design Ethics, News, Time Well Spent, Tech News, Society & Culture, Humane Design, Technology, Cht, Artificial Intelligence, Center For Humane Technology, The Social Dilemma Netflix, Philosophy, Human Downgrading, Aza Raskin, Attention Economy, Ethical Technology

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 26 June 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Tech leaders promise AI will bring unprecedented abundance. But what happens to human dignity when our labor becomes obsolete? In this episode, Michael Sandel explores why AI-driven prosperity could leave society hollow — and the lessons we can learn from the recent past.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey everyone, it's Tristan.
0:05.4	And welcome to your divided attention.
0:08.3	So if there's one thing that people know about AI, it's that it's coming for our jobs.
0:12.9	The main AI labs are all racing to build artificial general intelligence, which means an
0:17.7	AI that can do anything that a human mind can do behind a screen.
0:21.8	Or the saying goes, if you have a desk job, then that means you won't have a job.
0:28.2	And most people working in this technology agree that we're well on our way to that,
0:32.4	and that would mean job displacement at a level that we've just never seen before.
0:36.8	If you listen to some tech leaders, that's not as much of a disaster as it might sound.
0:41.3	Many predict a utopia because of this, where livelihoods are displaced by AI, but then
0:46.3	then replaced by universal basic income. Here's Elon Musk.
0:50.3	There will come a point where no job is needed.
0:53.3	You can have a job if you want to have a job for sort of personal satisfaction,
0:58.4	but the AI will be able to do everything.
1:01.7	And this is a vision where AI will be an equalizer,
1:05.0	and the abundance will be distributed to everybody.
1:07.7	But do we have a good reason to believe that would be true?
1:11.9	We've just been through a huge period where millions of people in the United States lost their jobs due to globalization
1:16.6	and automation, where they too had been told that they would benefit from productivity gains
1:21.5	that never ended up trickling down to that. And the result has been a loss of livelihood and dignity
1:27.3	that is torn holes in our social
1:29.2	fabric. And if we don't learn from this story, we may be doomed to repeat it, which is why we've
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Center for Humane Technology, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Center for Humane Technology and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.