of the great technological shifts in human history over the past millennium. would you say that artificial intelligence, the supremacy of the algorithm, represents one of those transformational moments for humankind? i m not sure that it does. but there is a fair chance that it will have transformative effects. it is all commonplace to compare it to the fire, or to the rise of industrial machinery starting in the 18th century, it remains to be seen whether it will be as important for our productivity and our lives, but we are already seeing some of its deep effects on how we organise our democracy, and inequality in modern nations. maybe you are not quite so sure about how dramatic its transformational impact will be, but you certainly seem to be pretty sure that you re sceptical. you say ai will fuel inequality, disempower workers, and, choke democracy? how? ai is a continuation of a trend that started perhaps around two years ago, where we have been using digital technologi
daron acemoglu, in massachusetts, welcome to hardtalk. massachusetts, welcome to hardtalk hardtalk. thank you, it s a deli . ht hardtalk. thank you, it s a delight to hardtalk. thank you, it s a delight to be hardtalk. thank you, it s a delight to be on hardtalk. thank you, it s a delight to be on the - hardtalk. thank you, it s a - delight to be on the programme. a great pleasure to have you here you have just written a book power and progress which goes through the impacts of some of the great technological shift in human history over the past millennium. would you say that artificial intelligence, the supremacy of the algorithm, represents one of those transformational moment for humankind? i’m transformational moment for humankind? transformational moment for humankind? ., , ., humankind? i m not sure that it does but there humankind? i m not sure that it does but there is humankind? i m not sure that it does but there is a humankind? i m not sure that it
things are already being used for centralising information further, and replacing workers that used to do simple analytical tasks such as writing tasks or summarising news and so on, that is only going to expand. it is the choice we have to make, how we will develop these technologies, and how we will use them, that is the critical one, especially when we are at the cusp of more and more investment in this generative ai. but as an economist you know that these technologies, including ai, are already being employed across the industrialised world, and if you also know that if you look at united kingdom or the united states, have almost structurally full employment. yes, we have people out of work but not very many and job markets are very tight. and if you look at, for example, consultancy groups like pwc, they ve analysed what they think will happen as a result of ai, they wrote a report called, will robots really steal ourjobs?
and potentialfor great earlier. ai has great promise and potential for great damage, the generative ai and potential for great damage, the generative al or the large language models could be a new tool for augmenting what we do in knowledge work, white collar work, journalism, academia, it is not currently going in that direction because actually, gpt four and chatgpt have very impressive looking results, but deep down, they are not super useful for knowledge workers at the moment. but at the same time many of these things are already being used for centralising information further, and replacing workers that used to do simple analytical tasks such as writing tasks or summarising news and so on, that is only going to expand. it is the choice we have to make on how we will develop these technologies, and how we will use them, that is the critical one, especially when we are at the cusp of more and more investment in this generative ai. , ., investment in this generative ai. ., , inve