Pondering AI - Tech, Prosperity and Power with Simon Johnson

Tech, Prosperity and Power with Simon Johnson

03/20/24 • 38 min

Simon Johnson takes on techno-optimism, the link between technology and human well-being, the law of intended consequences, the modern union remit and political will.

In this sobering tour through time, Simon proves that widespread human flourishing is not intrinsic to tech innovation. He challenges the ‘productivity bandwagon’ (an economic maxim so pervasive it did not have a name) and shows that productivity and market polarization often go hand-in-hand. Simon also views big tech’s persuasive powers through the lens of OpenAI’s board debacle.

Kimberly and Simon discuss the heyday of shared worker value, the commercial logic of automation and augmenting human work with technology. Simon highlights stakeholder capitalism’s current view of labor as a cost rather than people as a resource. He underscores the need for active attention to task creation, strong labor movements and participatory political action (shouting and all). Simon believes that shared prosperity is possible. Make no mistake, however, achieving it requires wisdom and hard work.

Simon Johnson is the Head of the Economics and Management group at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Simon co-authored the stellar book “Power and Progress: Our 1,000 Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity with Daren Acemoglu.

A transcript of this episode is here.

Simon Johnson takes on techno-optimism, the link between technology and human well-being, the law of intended consequences, the modern union remit and political will.

A transcript of this episode is here.

Previous Episode

Raising Robots with Professor Rose Luckin

Professor Rose Luckin provides an engaging tutorial on the opportunities, risks, and challenges of AI in education and why AI raises the bar for human learning.

Acknowledging AI’s real and present risks, Rose is optimistic about the power of AI to transform education and meet the needs of diverse student populations. From adaptive learning platforms to assistive tools, Rose highlights opportunities for AI to make us smarter, supercharge learner-educator engagement and level the educational playing field. Along the way, she confronts overconfidence in AI, the temptation to offload challenging cognitive workloads and the risk of constraining a learner’s choices prematurely. Rose also adroitly addresses conflicting visions of human quantification as the holy grail and the seeds of our demise. She asserts that AI ups the ante on education: how else can we deploy AI wisely? Rising to the challenge requires the hard work of tailoring strategies for specific learning communities and broad education about AI itself.

Rose Luckin is a Professor of Learner Centered Design at the UCL Knowledge Lab and Founder of EDUCATE Ventures Research Ltd., a London hub for educational technology start-ups, researchers and educators involved in evidence-based educational technology and leveraging data and AI for educational benefit. Explore Rose’s 2018 book Machine Learning and Human Intelligence (free after creating account) and the EDUCATE Ventures newsletter The Skinny.

A transcript of this episode is here.

Next Episode

The AI Experience with Sarah Gibbons and Kate Moran

Sarah Gibbons and Kate Moran riff on the experience of using current AI tools, how AI systems may change our behavior and the application of AI to human-centered design.

Sarah and Kate share their non-linear paths to becoming leading user experience (UX) designers. Defining the human-centric mindset Sarah stresses that intent is design and we are all designers. Kate and Sarah then challenge teams to resist short-term problem hunting for AI alone. This leads to an energized and frank debate about the tensions created by broad availability of AI tools with “shitty” user interfaces, why conversational interfaces aren’t the be-all-end-all and whether calls for more discernment and critical thinking are reasonable or even new. Kate and Sara then discuss their research into our nascent AI mental models and emergent impacts on user behavior. Kate discusses how AI can be used for UX design along with some far-fetched claims. Finally, both Kate and Sara share exciting areas of ongoing research.

Sarah Gibbons and Kate Moran are Vice Presidents at Nielson Norman Group where they lead strategy, research, and design in the areas of human-centered design and user experience (UX).

A transcript of this episode is here.