We Need to Stop Panicking About AI (with Andrew McAfee and Nils Gilman)

Every week brings a new warning about AI. It will take our jobs, drain our reservoirs, cook the planet. The forecasts come from serious people. They also rhyme with forecasts we've heard before, about every powerful new technology of the last century. In this episode, MIT economist Andrew McAfee argues that the panic is racing ahead of the reality. In 2013, he famously predicted a jobs crisis from machine learning and watched the unemployment rate hit historic lows instead. Humanity’s global footprint is getting lighter each year; we are doing more with less land, less water, less raw material. He's not dismissing the risks. He's asking us to look at the track record before we panic. Subscribe to the Berggruen Institute on YouTube to be the first to listen to new Futurology episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Berggrueninst Catch up on the Futurology conversation with full episodes on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyYCSKWs8iYgjg-mhu-EuhTrG0-adrb0c Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921 Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2I38HvHP6KlXrD5ysfygxk?si=XB2qyyGjT2ONMTd5XUKJAg&nd=1&dlsi=ac8cda6751834298 Mentioned in this Episode: The Second Machine Age — Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee (Book, 2014) What Will Future Jobs Look Like? — Andrew McAfee (TED Talk, 2013) More from Less — Andrew McAfee (Book, 2019) The Return of Nature: How Technology Liberates the Environment — Jesse Ausubel (Essay, 2015) The Population Bomb — Paul Ehrlich (Book, 1968) The Limits to Growth — Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William Behrens III (Book, 1972) Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI — Karen Hao (Book, 2025) How to Future-Proof Your Career in the Age of AI — Nils Gilman (Noema, 2026) Where to find Andrew McAfee: andrewmcafee.org The Geek Way on Substack Workhelix LinkedIn MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy Show ideas and feedback? Email: futurology@berggruen.org Learn more about the Berggruen Institute https://www.berggruen.org Follow Futurology! Instagram: / futurologypod Twitter/X: / futurologypod Tiktok: / futurologypod Facebook: / berggrueninst LinkedIn: / berggrueninst Bluesky: / futurologypod Credits Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney Theme Music: Marcus Bagala Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli & Kyle Scott Wilson Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(56)

We Can’t Prove We’re Conscious, Let Alone AI (with Geoffrey Lee and Grant Slater)

Machines are starting to act like humans. Does that mean they’re conscious? The problem is we haven’t been able to prove how or why humans are conscious yet either. So why would we be able to offer an...

15 Okt 1h 16min

Multispecies Democracy Now! (with Jonathon Keats and Grant Slater)

Democracy counts people, not plants. Humans are only a sliver of life on this planet, but today, we're the only ones who get a vote. What if we gave rights to rivers and standing to trees? In this e...

6 Okt 1h 37min

Let AI Have Intelligence. We’ll Keep Wisdom. (with Arianna Huffington and Dawn Nakagawa)

Somewhere around the Enlightenment we decided that thinking was what made us human. We built our schools, careers, and sense of worth at the altar of intelligence. Now machines are passing us on that ...

29 Sep 1h 4min

Are We Posthuman? (with N. Katherine Hayles and Claire Webb)

Relying on machines to coordinate our lives was just one step toward decentering humanity’s role in the world. Flights, banking, trade, food production... But as we start merging our actual decision-m...

17 Sep 1h 8min

God Is In the Machine (with Kevin Kelly and Nils Gilman)

Technologists have feared (or prayed for) the singularity as a rapture-like inevitability for nearly 70 years. In an instant, they believed, our machine intelligence will overtake us and race ahead. K...

9 Sep 1h 40min

Gamble on Anything. Except Murder. (with Bobby Allyn and Grant Slater)

With prediction markets, gambling has gone ambient. To place your bets, you don't need to visit a casino floor, a racetrack, or your corner bookie. Now any uncertain thing on Earth could be the next b...

18 Aug 1h 16min

There's No Such Thing as a Free Agent (with Gillian Tett and Dawn Nakagawa)

One value proposition of AI is a personalized assistant at your fingertips. Every Average Joe can now have a “pocket pixie," the kind of perk once reserved for Hollywood stars and high-powered CEOs. B...

11 Aug 1h 7min

We're Winning the Race to Replace Ourselves (with Tristan Harris and Dawn Nakagawa)

The people racing to build artificial general intelligence tell us this rush to the future is inevitable. It reads like a forecast, but works like an alibi. If nothing can stop the race, then no one d...

4 Aug 51min