Mark Leonard's World in 30 Minutes12 Kesä

How progress ends

This week, Mark Leonard welcomes Carl Benedikt Frey, associate professor of AI and work at the Oxford Internet Institute and author of How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation and the Fate of Nations, to discuss whether AI enthusiasm is obscuring a more fundamental problem: the global slowdown in productivity and innovation.

Carl argues that technological progress is neither inevitable nor guaranteed. Despite rapid advances in computing, the internet and AI, productivity growth is stagnating. He suggests that innovation depends on the institutions, incentives and political conditions—as well as technological breakthroughs—that allow societies to adapt and scale new ideas.

Mark and Carl explore what the rise of AI reveals about the changing balance between innovation and concentration, why China’s embrace of open-weight AI models could challenge American technological leadership, and why Europe continues to struggle in digital industries despite its strengths in manufacturing.

Is AI about to unleash a new era of prosperity? Why has productivity growth remained weak despite decades of technological advances? What does the AI race mean for competition between the US, China and Europe? And is the greatest risk facing advanced economies the end of progress itself?

This episode was recorded on April 30th 2026.

Bookshelf

Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative by Jennifer Burns

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(641)

Peace in the Middle East

This week, Julien Barnes-Dacey welcomes Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Saudi Arabia’s minister of foreign affairs, for a fireside chat at ECFR’s Annual Council Meeting. In Prince Faisal’s first pub...

18 Kesä 29min

The age of hyperpolitics

This week, Mark Leonard welcomes Anton Jäger, lecturer in politics at Oxford University and author of Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization Without Political Consequences, to discuss why political eng...

5 Kesä 32min

The rise of populism

This week, Mark Leonard welcomes Liam Byrne, a British Labour Party MP and chair of the House of Commons Business and Trade Select Committee, to talk about the rise of right-wing populism across Europ...

29 Touko 36min

Iran nuclear monitor: Month by month

This week, Mark Leonard is joined by Kelsey Davenport, director for non-proliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, and Ellie Geranmayeh, deputy director of ECFR’s Middle East and North Afri...

22 Touko 21min

The future of liberalism

This week, Mark Leonard welcomes Curtis Yarvin, American blogger and political thinker, to talk about the ideas reshaping parts of the American right and Silicon Valley. Known for his critiques of lib...

15 Touko 41min

Rethinking democracy

This week, Mark Leonard is joined by David Runciman, British political theorist and philosopher, to explore whether today’s sense of crisis really marks the end of democracy—or something more complex....

8 Touko 36min

The age of unorder

This week, Mark Leonard welcomes Ayşe Zarakol, professor of international relations at Cambridge University, to explore whether today’s global crises signal disorder or a deeper shift toward “unorder,...

1 Touko 25min