Is AI Productivity Worth Our Humanity? with Prof. Michael Sandel

Is AI Productivity Worth Our Humanity? with Prof. Michael Sandel

Tech leaders promise that AI automation will usher in an age of unprecedented abundance: cheap goods, universal high income, and freedom from the drudgery of work. But even if AI delivers material prosperity, will that prosperity be shared? And what happens to human dignity if our labor and contributions become obsolete?

Political philosopher Michael Sandel joins Tristan Harris to explore why the promise of AI-driven abundance could deepen inequalities and leave our society hollow. Drawing from his landmark work on justice and merit, Sandel argues that this isn't just about economics — it's about what it means to be human when our work role in society vanishes, and whether democracy can survive if productivity becomes our only goal.

We've seen this story before with globalization: promises of shared prosperity that instead hollowed out the industrial heart of communities, economic inequalities, and left holes in the social fabric. Can we learn from the past, and steer the AI revolution in a more humane direction?

Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on X: @HumaneTech_. You can find a full transcript, key takeaways, and much more on our Substack.

RECOMMENDED MEDIA

The Tyranny of Merit by Michael Sandel

Democracy’s Discontent by Michael Sandel

What Money Can’t Buy by Michael Sandel

Take Michael’s online course “Justice”

Michael’s discussion on AI Ethics at the World Economic Forum

Further reading on “The Intelligence Curse”

Read the full text of Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 speech

Read the full text of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1968 speech

Neil Postman’s lecture on the seven questions to ask of any new technology

RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES

AGI Beyond the Buzz: What Is It, and Are We Ready?

The Man Who Predicted the Downfall of Thinking

The Tech-God Complex: Why We Need to be Skeptics

The Three Rules of Humane Tech

AI and Jobs: How to Make AI Work With Us, Not Against Us with Daron Acemoglu

Mustafa Suleyman Says We Need to Contain AI. How Do We Do It?


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(168)

The Most Hopeful (And Concerning) Moment Yet in AI

The Most Hopeful (And Concerning) Moment Yet in AI

It’s been a whirlwind week in AI news. Weeks after a series of hacking incidents by rogue agents at OpenAI and Anthropic, we’ve seen a cascade of top AI researchers blow the whistle on what they call ...

17 Sep 20min

Flock is Just the Beginning: Inside the Era of AI-Powered Policing

Flock is Just the Beginning: Inside the Era of AI-Powered Policing

In a 2018 TED Talk, Yuval Harari argued that democracy prevailed over fascism and communism in the 20th century not because of any inherent advantage, but because the technology of that age favored op...

10 Sep 59min

We Measure What AI Can Do. We Should Measure What It Does to Us.

We Measure What AI Can Do. We Should Measure What It Does to Us.

In AI, what gets measured gets optimized. Right now, we're spending all our efforts to measure how capable and powerful models are, narrowly optimizing for those metrics while ignoring downstream cons...

27 Aug 47min

Enough Debate about the AI Jobpocalypse. We Need To Plan for the Messy Middle.

Enough Debate about the AI Jobpocalypse. We Need To Plan for the Messy Middle.

It feels like we’re stuck in an endless debate about what AI is going to mean for jobs and the economy. The prediction you hear from the people closest to the technology — both its critics and its boo...

13 Aug 57min

Can AI Be Built in Service of Life? A Conversation with Krista Tippett

Can AI Be Built in Service of Life? A Conversation with Krista Tippett

This week, we're bringing you a conversation that Tristan Harris had with Krista Tippett. Krista is the Peabody Award-winning host of the On Being podcast, where she explores spiritual inquiry, scienc...

16 Jul 53min

“Magnifica Humanitas:” Pope Leo’s Clarion Call on AI

“Magnifica Humanitas:” Pope Leo’s Clarion Call on AI

Since stepping into the Papacy, Pope Leo XIV has been a forceful voice pushing back against the anti-human path we’re on with AI. In May, he released “Magnifica Humanitas,” a sprawling encyclical warn...

2 Jul 30min

We Need AI Treaties. This is How We Get Them

We Need AI Treaties. This is How We Get Them

In the middle of the twentieth century, the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons seemed inevitable. The number of countries with nukes was climbing rapidly, and the idea of stopping the nuclear...

18 Jun 51min

What Do We Mean by Humane Tech?

What Do We Mean by Humane Tech?

We often think of the challenges created by technology as separate and disconnected, so trying to solve them feels like playing the world's hardest game of Whac-A-Mole.  What if, instead, we tackled t...

4 Jun 52min

Populært innen Samfunn

rss-spartsklubben
giver-og-gjengen-vg
aftenpodden
konspirasjonspodden
popradet
rss-nesten-hele-uka-med-lepperod
aftenpodden-usa
rss-henlagt-andy-larsgaard
min-barneoppdragelse
wolfgang-wee-uncut
grenselos
bokmerket-2
rss-espen-lee-usensurert
alt-fortalt
fladseth
rss-dette-ma-aldri-skje-igjen
synnve-og-vanessa
frokostshowet-pa-p5
krisemoter
rss-herrepanelet