0:00

This is the BBC. Hi,

0:30

I'm Ben Ansell, and thank you for listening to my BBC Radio 4 Wreath lectures

0:32

on our democratic

0:54

future. In this fourth and

0:56

final lecture, I look at the future

0:58

of prosperity and how we can get

1:00

and stay rich in a world of

1:02

increased climate change and risks from artificial

1:04

intelligence. Welcome

1:07

to Georgia in the southern United

1:09

States for this, the final Wreath

1:11

lecture of the series. A

1:14

centre for the civil rights struggle,

1:16

Georgia was more recently pivotal in

1:18

helping to determine the outcome of

1:20

the last presidential election. This

1:22

year, it's often been in the

1:24

headlines after charges of election fraud were

1:26

brought against Donald Trump and

1:28

now we're less than a year away

1:30

from what looks like another highly contentious

1:33

contest. We're in Atlanta

1:35

at the Georgia Institute of Technology,

1:37

known here as Georgia Tech, one

1:40

of America's top public research universities.

1:42

It has more than 47,000 students

1:44

specialising in

1:47

computing and engineering. And as such, this

1:49

place is symbolic of the increasing,

1:53

how shall I put it, economic muscle flexing

1:55

of the south. And we're

1:57

here with Oxford University's Professor Ben Ansell.

18:00

of Vienna built so much public housing in the 1920s that

18:02

even today 60% of the Viennese live

18:06

in state-subsidized housing, which is why

18:08

they can afford such fancy pastries.

18:12

Now I'm sure a lot of people in this

18:14

room wouldn't want to

18:16

live in state-subsidized housing. And

18:19

yet many of you do. Because if you

18:21

have a mortgage backed by Fannie Mae or

18:23

you take the mortgage interest rate deduction on

18:25

your income taxes, then guess what? The government

18:28

is also subsidizing you. But

18:31

governments and politics can also

18:33

make housing even less affordable

18:35

by restrictive zoning or planning

18:37

rules. And sometimes in

18:39

America that has been a deliberate

18:41

way of enforcing racial segregation through

18:43

redlining, as happened here in Atlanta.

18:46

And it's still used today to keep poorer

18:48

citizens out of wealthier neighborhoods. But

18:51

even when they're not trying to keep

18:53

others out, it's hard to get people

18:56

to support house buildings because the short-term

18:58

costs of new developments, streets dug up,

19:00

strains on the schools, they loom large.

19:03

While the benefits of new housing, well, they're

19:05

in the future. They go to new arrivals,

19:07

not old neighbors. We need

19:09

new housing to have shared prosperity because we

19:11

don't want future generations unable to afford the

19:14

houses that we grew up in and

19:16

loved. But that

19:19

means we have to take the task

19:21

of building homes seriously and that takes

19:23

political courage. It means taking on the

19:25

most powerful vested interest of all in

19:27

politics, existing homeowners.

19:30

Again, I can feel politicians shuddering at the

19:32

idea, but there are ways of sweetening the

19:35

deal. One novel idea is

19:37

street votes. So your whole street gets

19:39

to vote on a new zoning plan

19:41

for that street. And if it passes,

19:44

then everyone on the street gets

19:46

rights to develop following that plan

19:48

and potentially benefit from the rising

19:50

values following development. Or the

19:52

street could just vote it down. But the important

19:54

part here is that the decisions made on your

19:56

street, not in City Hall. self-regulation.

24:02

And it's true that major tech-siggers from Elon

24:04

Musk to Bill Gates worry about a malign

24:07

artificial intelligence. They do. But

24:09

the short-term incentives of tech firms for

24:11

profit margins mean that we'd be naive

24:13

to trust technologists to solely regulate themselves

24:16

or to think that they wouldn't charge us

24:18

a fortune to restrain the very algorithms that

24:20

they've created. So perhaps

24:22

we should take a hint instead from

24:24

this year's most celebrated drama about a

24:27

wreath lecturer. And you're wondering what it is.

24:29

Seventy years ago this fall

24:31

Robert Oppenheimer delivered his wreath

24:33

lectures as humanity faced another

24:35

Promethean moment. He spoke

24:38

of science as a pilgrimage towards understanding

24:40

over the long centuries, culminating in the

24:42

exploitation of the power locked

24:44

in the subatomic world, a power that

24:47

Oppenheimer himself of course mastered. But

24:50

after creating the atomic bomb he spent the

24:52

rest of his life concerned

24:54

with the political question of how to prevent

24:56

its further use. And spoiler

24:58

alert, that did not make him popular.

25:01

But humanity has so far never again

25:03

played with atomic fire. And not because

25:06

we couldn't, but because we

25:08

chose not to collectively. And in part

25:10

this was the deterrence of mutually assured

25:12

destruction. But much of our

25:14

success came from regulation and from cooperation.

25:17

After the creation of the bomb

25:19

the US government and its atomic

25:21

agencies made sure to have oversight

25:24

and control of any further innovation.

25:26

As the Cold War ground on,

25:28

hostile superpowers were still able to

25:30

agree on non-proliferation and ultimately nuclear

25:32

arms reduction. So surely

25:34

the international challenges today of regulating

25:36

AI, it can't outweigh those of

25:38

two superpowers nonetheless choosing to control

25:41

their Promethean urges. So

25:43

our governments cannot leave governing AI

25:45

just to the algorithmists. If AI

25:48

does create unimaginable fortunes it'll be

25:50

the role of democratic governments to

25:53

make sure that people benefit too. And

25:55

currently our governments have woken up

25:58

to AI's existential risk. But

26:00

they're neglecting its enormous economic

26:02

and political risks. And

26:04

it's not obvious we should be much happier

26:06

about being ruled by big tech CEOs than

26:09

by a runaway AI. So

26:11

citizens of democracies, we

26:13

have the right and the power to

26:15

ask our governments to look past the

26:18

short-term costs of regulating AI to our

26:20

long-run welfare, and to make sure that

26:22

the resulting prosperity is truly shared. And

26:24

we need shared prosperity not just for

26:26

its own sake. Although who wouldn't

26:28

want to feel a little richer, we

26:30

need it because without inclusive economic growth,

26:32

it's hard to achieve the other things

26:34

that we care about, from security to

26:36

solidarity. It's no coincidence

26:38

that richer, more equal countries tend to

26:41

have lower crime, or that they're better

26:43

able to support effective public education and

26:45

health systems. And most

26:47

critically of all, prosperity goes hand

26:50

in hand with effective democracy. Richer

26:53

countries are more likely to become and

26:55

stay democratic. When there's more to go

26:57

around, it just gets easier to address

26:59

the trade-offs that we need to make

27:02

in functioning democracies, for the

27:04

fortunate to support the unfortunate and for

27:06

deals to get cut. Economic

27:09

stagnation, by contrast. Well, that

27:11

just makes every decision harder.

27:13

Dissatisfaction with the economy spills

27:15

over to distrust of politics.

27:18

Populists, trounced mainstream parties, rule

27:20

breakers, denounced rule makers, and

27:22

disagreement becomes chaos. So

27:25

democracy and prosperity go hand

27:27

in hand. And

27:30

the central role of democracy in

27:32

underpinning America's prosperity was best described

27:34

by another, I have to say

27:36

rather more famous European political scientist,

27:38

Alexis de Tocqueville, who traveled

27:41

across America two centuries ago. So that

27:43

means at least he avoided the Greyhound,

27:45

though possibly not the cockroaches. For

27:48

Tocqueville, America's capitalist energy, its

27:51

equality, and its democracy were

27:53

inseparable. But he

27:56

too warned that the vast inequalities created

27:58

by the technology of history. growth,

30:00

not just on fossil fuels alone. I mean,

30:03

ultimately, the value of goods that we buy

30:05

and sell to one another isn't determined by

30:07

the amount of carbon in them alone. They're

30:09

determined by how much we want those goods.

30:12

We live in countries with giant service sector

30:14

economies. So I don't think that

30:16

slowing down our use of carbon-emitting

30:18

energy dooms us to this kind

30:21

of 0% growth forever. And

30:25

it would be very unfortunate if people got

30:27

that idea in their head that there was

30:29

this pure trade-off between controlling climate change and

30:31

having any money to go around. OK. Right.

30:35

Let us open this up to you. And when you ask your

30:37

question, if you can say who you are and if you represent

30:39

an organization, what that might be. Thank

30:41

you. Nathaniel Smith, I'm with the

30:44

Partnership for Southern Equity based in Atlanta.

30:46

Two quick questions. One,

30:49

do you think our economic system

30:51

is actually designed to facilitate shared

30:53

prosperity? And then the second question

30:55

is, can we truly realize

30:57

shared prosperity without a multiracial democracy? I

31:00

know you talked about a liberal democracy.

31:02

I mean, in the South and in

31:04

the US, we're fighting in other places

31:06

around the world, we're fighting for

31:08

a multiracial democracy. Do you think that shared

31:10

prosperity can be realized without that? Let

31:14

me start with the first question.

31:16

So there's a fundamental

31:18

tension at the heart of the system that

31:20

has been most successful in creating prosperity in

31:22

the world, which is that it's a mix

31:25

of capitalist, broadly capitalist economic

31:27

system, which is going to lead

31:29

to concentration in wealth, and

31:32

an egalitarian political system, democracy, that spreads

31:34

out political power. And that tension is

31:36

the world that we all live in.

31:38

That's what all of our politics is

31:40

about. So that is

31:42

to say, capitalism under some kind of

31:44

democratic restraint is how we all got

31:47

rich. And I think the

31:49

experience of countries that abandoned capitalism

31:51

in the latter half of the 20th century

31:53

was neither one ended up

31:55

producing sustainable growth, or one that gave

31:58

people the liberties and freedoms. that

32:00

we all cherish, right? So our

32:02

system is imperfect, and it's imperfect because it's

32:04

always going to be a balance between these

32:06

two forces. But I don't think there's anything

32:09

fundamentally flawed about it, as long as

32:11

we as citizens exert our

32:13

democratic rights along with our economic

32:15

rights. So the question

32:17

about whether multiracial democracy and liberal

32:20

democracy go hand in hand, I

32:22

mean, American liberal democracy has had

32:25

a tortured and tortuous history with

32:27

providing racially equal rights that

32:29

did not end just in 1964 and 1965,

32:31

although clearly that was a

32:35

threshold moment. It's

32:37

always going to be difficult to

32:40

have equal voice when

32:42

people want to exclude others by

32:44

virtue of their skin color or

32:46

indeed their creed or language or

32:48

religion from equal political power. If

32:51

they want to find a way to dilute the votes of some

32:53

people, and of course in

32:55

American politics that has been a fundamental theme

32:57

for centuries, I don't think that

33:00

the fundamental strength of American liberal

33:02

democracy, its separation of powers, federalism,

33:07

the importance of judicial review

33:09

are bad things that prevent

33:11

that. American liberal democracy

33:13

has great strength in encouraging a multiracial

33:15

democracy. Would I say it is a

33:17

perfect union yet? Or maybe not? Can

33:20

I go back to the questioner, actually? I mean, can you think

33:22

of a better system? Well, the

33:25

assumption was that I was just talking about

33:27

the American, the current economic

33:29

system. I'm talking about the broader economic

33:31

systems around the world. I mean, whether

33:33

it be communism or whether it be

33:36

capitalism or whether it be a

33:38

social, something in the middle. I

33:40

mean, I think that we need to fundamentally

33:42

take a step back and think about what

33:45

does a democracy look like that looks

33:47

at everyone as valuable. But

33:50

you've been thinking about it. So you step

33:52

back. Tell me what you're thinking about and

33:54

what you know. I mean, I've definitely

33:56

been blessed to be from a

33:58

place called Atlanta where you talked

34:00

about the Civil Rights Movement. And one

34:03

of the great leaders who came from

34:05

Atlanta was a gentleman by the name of Martin Luther

34:07

King, Jr. And he talked a great

34:09

deal about what he called the beloved

34:12

community, where you could actually

34:14

create a society that was not

34:16

solely based on extraction, or what

34:18

we call extreme extraction, but an

34:20

economy that's built on a reparative

34:22

agenda versus an extractive agenda, right?

34:24

And I think that when

34:27

you talk about climate change and you talk

34:29

about the challenges that we face around climate

34:31

issues, I think that is not just an

34:33

economic problem that we have in our world,

34:35

but a moral problem that we have. And

34:38

so I think that when we try to

34:40

separate those two things, it's difficult

34:42

for us to create an economy that can work for everyone.

34:44

That's my whole point. Very grateful for the

34:46

question. Let's take another question. There's a lady

34:48

there in the middle. My name is Marilynne

34:51

Brown, and I teach at Georgia Tech. I

34:53

teach in the energy and climate field. Once

34:56

upon a time, we're at the mercy of

34:58

the titans of industry. They made the choices

35:00

about what power plants to build and what

35:02

steel mills to run and what cars to

35:04

make and the offerings to

35:07

their markets. But

35:09

in reality, we have control of

35:11

all of that. Consumer choice, there

35:13

have been calculations about how we,

35:15

in fact, as individuals, can move

35:18

the market 60, 70% by

35:20

what we choose to buy. But

35:23

I'm now ratcheting back on

35:25

that argument because we're seeing,

35:27

for instance, that homeownership is

35:29

increasingly no longer accessible

35:31

to so many of today's youth.

35:35

You cannot- So may I ask what the question is

35:37

for Ben? Yeah. So

35:40

we're no longer

35:42

able, for instance, to choose

35:44

to produce our own electricity

35:47

by becoming prosumers because utilities

35:50

will not buy that electricity

35:52

back. So I'm

35:54

wondering what the future of

35:56

prosperity is with respect to

35:58

access to capital. and

36:00

the means of production with respect

36:03

to having control over the climate

36:05

future. Thank you. Okay. Yeah,

36:07

so I think it's fair to say that younger people,

36:10

and I'm glad to see we

36:12

do have some young people in

36:14

this room, has been left out

36:16

of many of the economic freedoms

36:18

that their parents and grandparents enjoyed.

36:20

That particularly relates to home ownership

36:22

because with home ownership gives you

36:24

the stability to generate further wealth,

36:26

and then, as you argued, to

36:28

exercise your wealth and your income

36:30

in choosing products that you want and

36:32

push back against companies. Now, the success of America,

36:34

I mentioned in its democratic

36:37

form, is about a balance of powers, is

36:39

setting groups against one another to make sure

36:41

that there's no preponderance of power in any

36:43

place, and that is just as true for

36:46

the economy. I alluded earlier to Standard Oil,

36:49

and great Republican president of the early 20th

36:51

century, Teddy Roosevelt,

36:53

bust that kind of

36:55

market power, thinking of it as anti-democratic.

36:57

So if we can't exert that power

36:59

ourselves, we even need the government to

37:01

step in directly to bust the

37:04

trusts of today, or we need at

37:06

least to empower people individually to have

37:09

enough shared wealth to be able to

37:11

make those choices themselves as consumers forcing

37:13

companies. Why are you shaking your head, sir? Say who

37:15

you are, first of all, and then why? Explain the

37:17

shake. Yes, my name is Skylar Eakins,

37:19

and I'm with the Atlanta Young Republicans.

37:21

And I have two part questions. The

37:24

reason I'm shaking my head is you

37:26

talk a lot about shared prosperity. In

37:28

my mind, I'm thinking of the movement

37:30

for equity, right? Everyone talks

37:32

about equity. We're constantly using that

37:34

word. Who determines what

37:38

equity is? Who gets the power?

37:40

Who gets the resources? And

37:42

why are they qualified to determine

37:44

that? The second part of my

37:47

question, and why I'm a skeptic,

37:49

is talk about climate change. It's

37:51

a very privileged question, because half

37:53

of the world's population lives in

37:55

China and India, and thousands

37:57

of people lost their job because of the

37:59

key Stone XL pipeline here in the

38:01

United States. So how do you go

38:03

to Rule Appalachia where there are very

38:06

poor people and tell them, hey, I'm

38:08

sorry you just lost your job and

38:10

in 10 years I've got this great

38:12

plan to employ you? Yes. So, well,

38:15

let me begin by saying you're absolutely

38:17

right that that's the core question for

38:19

people who care about reducing carbon emissions

38:21

is what to do about the people

38:23

who are currently producing those carbon emissions,

38:25

many of whom, as you correctly know,

38:27

come from poor backgrounds and

38:29

it would hardly be a shared prosperity

38:31

if that's something you care about to say to

38:33

those people, well, too bad you lose your job,

38:35

but don't worry everyone else will be better off.

38:37

That's been an issue that 20

38:40

years ago when we talked about regulations for

38:42

climate change, that group was largely ignored and

38:44

I think they pushed back and we've seen

38:46

that pushback, right? So that's entirely understandable. I

38:48

think it's really important for politicians to understand

38:50

that climate change policies might be collectively desirable,

38:52

but if there are losers, you need to

38:54

think about what to do about those losers

38:56

and those people have democratic rights to say,

38:59

you know what, I don't want to lose

39:01

my job. To your

39:03

point about energy use abroad, by the way, there

39:05

are going to be lots of these people in

39:07

China and India too, right? So that's a really

39:09

difficult question for those countries. Now, the Chinese response

39:11

might just be to ignore them because they're not

39:13

a democracy and they can, but I don't think

39:15

that's a response we would want here. On

39:18

equity, what I will say

39:20

about that is that the American debate about

39:22

equity and the way it's understood outside of

39:25

America are pretty distinct. So I don't want

39:27

to give you a British person's view of

39:29

how to think about equity because I will

39:31

get it wrong. But when I'm talking about

39:33

a shared prosperity, I'm not necessarily talking about

39:36

redistributing. I'm not talking about reparations per se.

39:38

I'm just talking about making sure that when

39:40

there's new growth, it's

39:42

not solely pertaining to a small

39:45

group of individuals who happen to

39:47

run companies. And I

39:49

think that's something that broadly most people agree

39:51

on. We don't want a robber baron society.

39:53

Exactly what the government's role should be in

39:55

that is a complicated and difficult political question.

39:58

Okay, but what's the answer? algorithms,

42:00

they don't know what the truth is.

42:02

And that's why they're really good if

42:04

you want to have the Declaration of

42:06

Independence done like a Michael Jackson song.

42:08

They can do that. But they

42:10

don't know who Michael Jackson is or

42:13

what the Declaration of Independence was. And so

42:15

we'll just get lots of things that look

42:17

truthy but are very far from the truth.

42:20

A woman there. Let's take you. Hi, I'm

42:22

Chelsea Graves from the Sandman School of International

42:24

Affairs at Georgia Tech. My question for you

42:27

is how can we

42:29

use our agency to incentivize AI companies

42:31

to add more context to their devices

42:33

that they so desperately need, as you

42:36

shared with us today? Thank you.

42:38

Yeah, thank you. That's a really, really important

42:40

question. It's going to be extremely hard for

42:42

us to do. So I had a

42:45

look at the White House issued

42:47

a set of views about

42:49

artificial intelligence regulation. 95%

42:52

of those were about existential threat. Maybe that's

42:54

a bit strong. They were

42:56

about making sure that

42:59

we retain control and basically that

43:01

Skynet doesn't end up lasering

43:03

us to death. Or they

43:05

were about preventing algorithmic injustice.

43:07

And that's an important point, making sure

43:09

that computer doesn't say no just to

43:11

some groups rather than others. I think

43:13

we'd all agree we wouldn't want that.

43:15

But there was much, much less about

43:19

the day-to-day distortion

43:21

of politics and

43:23

the risks to people economic

43:26

livelihoods of AI. And I

43:28

think those are classic political

43:31

questions that we usually resolve

43:33

through our democratic agency. The

43:36

US has media regulation. The

43:38

UK has media regulation. We have

43:40

fairness rules. We have some impartiality

43:43

rules. And those are so

43:45

much harder for us to employ on

43:47

social media. So what that

43:49

agenda looks like is not for me

43:51

to say. I mean, that's me punting

43:53

again. But it also surprises me that

43:55

we're not seeing political parties talk about

43:58

these core questions that are going to... determined

48:00

the outcomes of all of Georgia, which

48:02

you have, Georgia's an agricultural state. You

48:05

know, that's not going to, you know, the,

48:07

the, I'm sorry, but the

48:09

policies of those bigger cities are not going

48:11

to be representative of the state as a

48:14

whole. So I guess the question I

48:16

would have is, do you think the vote of

48:18

someone in an agricultural district should be worth more

48:20

or less or the same as someone in

48:22

the urban area? Okay. Do

48:24

you want to come back on that? It's about not, it's

48:27

about overriding votes. Okay. So

48:30

what I would say is if you had

48:32

the popular vote in its entirety, then the

48:34

vote of somebody in a rural district of

48:36

Georgia and the vote of somebody in

48:38

the center of Atlanta and the vote of someone in a

48:40

rural district in Wyoming and the vote of someone in New

48:43

York City would all count exactly the same. Now

48:46

then you're just in the world of

48:48

majority rule and you know, you can

48:50

argue that majority rule is unfortunate for

48:52

minority who always lose. Absolutely.

48:56

I think if you believe in one person, one vote,

48:58

it becomes hard to come up with complicated ways of

49:00

kind of tweaking things so that some groups get represented

49:02

more than other because they live in a rural area

49:05

or an urban area. I guess in my view, those

49:07

votes should count exactly the same. Okay. Can

49:10

I just say that that's your question, translated

49:12

the headshakes into sound. Now who wants to

49:14

respond to the point that was made? I

49:16

mean, you all made, you made noises. Now

49:18

put your hand up if you'd like to

49:20

respond. DJ Terry, I am, I grew

49:23

up on the west side of Atlanta, 2019 graduate of

49:25

this grade. I'm a very institution from public policy and

49:28

the vice president of the young Democrats of

49:30

Atlanta. So my question is, if you're

49:35

not, if you're, if you're not familiar, actually

49:38

the Georgia legislature

49:41

is going into special session to redraw the

49:44

district maps for it because they have to

49:46

add majority black districts because the federal

49:48

government ruled that the districts were not equitable.

49:51

Could you talk a little bit about why

49:53

equitable ballot access, for example, in Mississippi, we

49:55

saw in the previous election where there was

49:57

difficulty with constituents being able to get. access

50:00

to the ballot box. Could you talk a

50:02

little bit about why equitable ballot access is

50:04

important to the future of prosperity? Like

50:07

I just said in answer to the last

50:09

question, I firmly believe that everybody should have

50:12

their votes weighted equally to

50:14

one another. Electoral systems are tough when they're trying to

50:16

represent geographies as well. So I know that we're in

50:18

an imperfect world, but we want to get as close

50:21

as we can to that. But I do think that

50:23

a weakness of the American democratic

50:26

policy is that electoral rules are

50:28

so different from state to state,

50:30

right? And then everybody wants to game

50:32

the rules, right? So, you

50:34

know, if I were to come up with

50:36

a constitutional amendment and states rights people would

50:38

hate me for this, it would be, could

50:40

we please have a similar set of electoral

50:43

voting procedures across all states

50:45

in federal elections? That's not a good

50:47

states rights argument, but I think it

50:49

is an argument about making all Americans

50:51

count equally in the voting process. Thank

50:54

you very much. That scared out fast.

50:56

Thank you. Now my question is going to take us back. You

50:58

need to say who you are. All of you. Remember

51:01

these words. Say who you are. The

51:04

copy of one joke, Spelman College and

51:06

the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance here in

51:08

Atlanta. I want you to

51:11

comment on your thoughts about this concept

51:13

of a just transition. And if that

51:15

is one strategy that can help us

51:17

get to this shared prosperity, if

51:20

we can, you know, dial back

51:22

the use of fossil fuels and

51:24

those industries associated with them, but

51:26

then to retrain that same workforce

51:29

to have other jobs that are moving us

51:31

toward a cleaner energy future, your thoughts

51:33

on whether or not that might be effective.

51:35

Yeah. So this is a common strategy in

51:37

America and in Europe. In Europe, it's sort

51:39

of called the Green New Deal.

51:42

These are giant, giant government

51:45

investment programs designed to try

51:47

and shift industrial production in

51:49

quite a directed and strategic

51:51

fashion towards producing renewable energy

51:54

and ideally buying off people in fossil fuel industries.

51:56

This is big government, right? And so I can

51:58

see where people who don't. like lots of tax

52:00

and spending would disapprove of this because they are very,

52:03

very large in nature. But I think

52:05

the argument that people who support them have

52:08

is what you might call a supply side liberalism.

52:10

That's a phrase that Ezra Klein uses,

52:12

which is that some types of reforms

52:14

are just about making sure we have

52:16

enough stuff and the stuff we need

52:18

in this case are ways

52:20

of producing energy that don't force us to

52:23

rely on fossil fuels anymore. And

52:26

in a world where companies aren't yet providing

52:28

themselves, I guess the idea is that the

52:30

government incentivizes them to do that and can

52:33

channel that in ways that it views as

52:35

just. Now, of course, that then is a

52:37

big political question, right? Because one man's just

52:39

is another man's waste. But I

52:41

do think that's what our politics is going

52:43

to look like actually over the next 10

52:45

years because these are going to be the

52:47

industries of tomorrow and America will not want

52:49

to be buying all of their electrical vehicles

52:51

and batteries and wind turbines from China. Good

52:54

evening. Good evening. My name

52:56

is Jennifer Schlatt. I'm a member of ACIR

52:59

and I'm a graduate student in

53:01

international relations. Just had a quick

53:03

concern about artificial intelligence. Do

53:05

you predict any biases with

53:08

the further increase of artificial intelligence

53:10

over time? Because we have these

53:12

programmers who develop the technology and

53:14

they could possibly manipulate the technology

53:18

how they want and it could possibly

53:20

cause misinformation or something to

53:22

that effect and affect future prosperity. So

53:24

the worry I have is not necessarily

53:27

that people will deliberately inject

53:30

bias into how the

53:32

algorithms work. The problem

53:34

is that the information that we feed

53:36

into artificial intelligence algorithms is contentless from

53:38

the perspective of those algorithms. They don't

53:40

know what it is, right? And

53:43

that means that AI can produce outcomes that

53:46

none of us using our common sense would

53:48

ever think of as realistic at all. Plus,

53:50

there's an even worse problem. If AI is

53:52

producing all of the output that we see

53:55

in the media, then the AI is training

53:57

itself on itself, right?

54:00

And that is the bias that I'm

54:02

worried about, a kind of continued spiral

54:04

of computers picking up other things produced

54:06

by computers to produce more information that

54:08

just gets used by other computers, locking

54:10

us out of the information that

54:12

is ours and that we produce and that we care about. Thank

54:15

you. And the question from the gentleman there.

54:17

Hi, I'm Richard Barrack from the School of

54:19

Public Policy at Georgia Tech. You began by

54:21

talking about short-termism, and that clearly is a

54:23

problem in the United States, but also in

54:25

other countries. It's not totally descriptive.

54:28

I mean, there are plenty of counter-examples. The

54:30

American Constitution, the National Park Service, the

54:33

Inflation Reduction Act. I had long time

54:35

horizons. But my question is,

54:37

is this a uniquely American phenomenon? Have

54:39

other nations overcome short-termism? And if so,

54:41

please tell us how. Yeah,

54:44

what you need to do is reform all of your political

54:46

institutions, but don't be like the UK, where we have

54:48

the same electoral institutions as you, but no federalism. So

54:50

if the government gets into power, they can just change

54:52

whatever they want. So that gives you even more extreme

54:55

short-termism. Look, I do

54:58

think countries that have

55:00

coalition governments tend to make longer run policy.

55:02

And the reason they do is because you

55:04

don't have this kind of volatile back and

55:06

forth. Basically, there are always some

55:08

parties that kind of get in the coalition

55:10

and they keep policies going. Now, that can

55:12

lead to kind of gradualism. It can lead

55:14

to gridlock. It can lead to the inability

55:16

to change, right? And those are bad things

55:19

too, right? So there's no perfect system. But

55:21

I suppose what I would ask for Americans to

55:24

do is to not view

55:26

long run, non-democratic government

55:28

institutions that make decisions as necessarily

55:30

bad, right? Sometimes you need entities

55:33

that aren't just affected by electoral

55:35

swings all the time, because otherwise

55:37

the only thing that drives any

55:39

decision making is a two

55:42

year congressional election cycle. Now,

55:44

final for me, I think, you've

55:47

described over this series a world that seems like

55:49

a pretty, sometimes conflicted

55:51

and dangerous place. And you

55:53

began the series by saying you were an optimist. What

55:56

are your grounds for optimism at the end

55:58

of this week's series now? In

56:00

the very grand scheme of things, I

56:03

think we should all be optimists. We live

56:05

in a world where we are

56:07

so much richer than our great-grandparents,

56:09

where we have democratic freedoms that

56:11

they lacked, especially lots of people

56:13

in this room whose parents lacked

56:15

voting rights not so long ago.

56:18

Have we got to where we

56:20

want to be yet? How will our children

56:22

and great-grandchildren feel about where we were? Well,

56:25

they will probably think that we were imperfect

56:27

too, but then that means presumably that we're

56:29

going somewhere. I

56:31

do think that the nature of some of

56:33

the challenges that we face are existential, but

56:35

that was also true for our parents and

56:37

great-grandparents because of the atomic bomb. So

56:40

humans have always found ways to make our

56:43

lives difficult, but we've always found

56:45

ways to respond to the difficulties that we've

56:47

created, like a teenager finally clearing up their

56:49

room. It's a perfect

56:52

answer to a final question. But

56:54

listen, this concludes the series of

56:56

Wreath lectures on our democratic future.

56:59

We really hope you've enjoyed listening.

57:01

Certainly, so much to think about, Ben.

57:03

Thank you. If you want to know

57:06

more, please go to the Wreath website

57:08

for a huge archive of the series,

57:10

transcripts, much, much more. But

57:12

for now, a huge thanks to our hosts

57:14

here in Georgia Tech, in Atlanta, and

57:17

a very special thanks to you, Professor

57:19

Ben Amsell, the BBC's 2023 Wreath Lecture.

57:38

To know what it means to be

57:40

Roman, you need to look beyond the

57:43

switching gladiators. There are fresh

57:45

stories to be told from scattered

57:47

clues and new discoveries. I'm

57:50

Mary Beard, and I'll be

57:52

uncovering these stories for Being Roman,

57:55

a new series for BBC Radio 4.

57:58

There's a young bride. avenging the

58:00

murder of her parents, and

58:03

an emperor flirting outrageously

58:06

with his nervous teacher. Listen

58:08

to Being Roman wherever you

58:10

get your podcasts. Hey,

58:18

it's Ryan Reynolds, owner and user of Mint

58:21

Mobile, with a special holiday message. If you

58:23

sign up now for three months, you get

58:25

three months free on every one of our

58:27

plans, even unlimited. Now, I realize this is

58:29

more of a holiday offer than it is

58:31

a holiday message, but if you read between

58:33

the lines, you can see a message in

58:35

there. It says, we love you. Visit mintmobile.com/switch

58:38

for the offer. Limited time new customer offer.

58:40

Activate within 45 days. Additional taxes, fees, and

58:42

restrictions apply. Unlimited customers using more than 40 gigabytes

58:44

per month will experience lower speeds. Video streams at

58:46

480p. See mintmobile.com for details.

58:48

for details.