Chatbots Don’t Fool Us, We Fool Ourselves (With Joshua Jay)
Does AI Have to Be Bad News for the Planet? (with Meghan Busse)
To Thrive Alongside AI, Find the Bottlenecks (with Ben Jones)
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#transcript\">View Full Episode Transcript\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>When people go to a magic show, they expect to be fooled. That’s part of the fun. And magician \u003ca href=\"https://www.joshuajay.com/\">Joshua Jay\u003c/a> says much of the magician’s work is helping people fool themselves. Our brains are hardwired to fill in gaps, predict outcomes, and take cognitive shortcuts to process the overwhelming amount of information around us. When interacting with AI chatbots, we may similarly fool ourselves into believing we’re interacting with a human. But unlike at a magic show, it’s not always clear when the trick is over. Plus: how AI is changing magic.\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"Transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Welcome to Life Automated, the show where we explore what it means to live, work, and make decisions in a rapidly automating world. I’m Jess Love. I’ve been known, in moments of excitement or confusion or overwhelm, to turn to a chatbot, just to share, “Hey, this is what I’m thinking I’ll do next. Here’s how I want to approach this situation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’ll even occasionally return to provide an update. Maybe this isn’t ideal. I know how sycophantic chatbots can be, telling me how thoughtful and clever my plans are unless I sternly direct them to act like dream-crushing jerks. But I can’t deny that the experience is pleasant. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like if your diary could write back. And yes, on some level, I know this is a machine trained to keep me engaging with it, and yet don’t I still feel a little validated when that response comes back? A little heard? There is no precedent for this. In every other moment in history, feeling like you’re talking back and forth with a real person has meant you’re connecting with a real person, someone who understands you, someone offering you their finite attention.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And we’ve evolved to take pleasure in these interactions, to seek them out, because that’s kept our species connected and alive. But with chatbots, this ancient link between the appearance of a mind and an actual mind no longer holds, and it’s really hard to know what to make of that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There are people who obsess over this gap between what we intellectually know to be true and what we experience as real. Only they’re not AI researchers — they’re magicians. Today’s conversation is with one of the finest. Joshua Jay has performed his sleight-of-hand magic all around the world, including on major talk shows and for US presidents, and he’s a total magic nerd, the author of several books about magic, including “How Magicians Think.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And he’s not gonna teach us about algorithms. Instead, he’ll teach us to see ourselves the way he sees us, as people whose attention can be commanded and redirected, whose memories can be shifted, and as active participants in our own deception. We also talk about the surprising ways that technology is changing magic.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>From Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, this is Life Automated, distributed by KQED. Here’s my conversation with Joshua Jay. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke famously said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” And I think for a lot of people, sitting down in front of a chatbot for the first time, that was kind of the experience.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Magic. There was this thing, this machine doing something that we didn’t think that machines could do. It was interacting with us in real time, in our own language, in meaningful ways. So, I wanted to ask you, as an actual magician, somebody who thinks about how emotions like awe and surprise are created, what was your first experience using a chatbot like, and did it in any way feel like a magic trick?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. It’s such a great question, and it’s such a relevant question for me as a magician because we are deliverers of certain emotion, which is what you’re talking about, this awe, this like I don’t even know how this is happening, but it’s happening anyway. You know, Teller said so beautifully that magic is the difference between what you see and what you know.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, you’re having a conversation with this entity and you know it’s not a person, and yet you’re having this conversation. So, the crisis is always we are deliverers of this feeling of astonishment, and yet by virtue of the fact that we know how all of this is done, we often don’t get that sense of awe, and we don’t get amazed very often.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, the first time that I engaged with AI and was… You know, that first time you take the plunge and you’re just asking, you’re having a conversation with a thing, I was truly astonished. And I felt like, wow, this is probably what it feels like to watch a magic show and just be amazed at everything. And so yeah, I absolutely was totally and utterly amazed and felt like, as we call you guys, “laypeople”, I felt like a layperson. I felt like a muggle. And, it was really fantastic. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> You just brought up, Teller, of course, of the very famous duo ‘Penn & Teller’, and they have this trick. It’s kind of a classic trick where they’re moving balls in cups as magicians do. We call you guys- magicians, us muggles.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Only they use clear cups, so you can actually see what’s happening. And that really kind of reminds me of what you were just talking about, this idea of knowing without knowing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. You know, I find myself thinking so often when I’m performing, like, you know, you do something, and hopefully somebody really likes it and they scream in all the right places.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But what I’m thinking most of the time is, “Oh, you guys aren’t even seeing the coolest part. If you could see how this works, you would be even more flipped out.” Because sometimes you’re fooled by something that’s so much simpler than you could expect. And very often, and this is such a beautiful topic that it’s its own deep dive- The magician doesn’t fool you; you fool yourself.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And there is a difference. You know, some things it is the magician. It’s sleight-of-hand. It’s a gizmo you couldn’t possibly anticipate, a technology you’re not aware of. But often, you fool yourself with assumptions you make and the psychology that’s being used on you. So, it is this really interesting thing that you bring up where as great as magic feels to a muggle, to a layperson, you don’t even see the best part often.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And, you know, you bring up this classic Penn and Teller piece, and they have many pieces like this, where they said, “We’re gonna do cups and balls,” but then in the middle of the trick, after they do a classic cups and balls with opaque cups and normal-sized balls, they do it again, but they do it with clear cups.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>As it goes with breaking a few rules of magic. Now, the first rule of magic is you never do the same trick twice. So, we’re good. Second rule of magic is you never tell an audience how a trick is being done. So, we’re gonna tell you exactly how the trick is being done. The third rule of magic is you never let the audience see your secret preparation.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And even though if you were to zoom in on the right part, you would see how it works, it’s really a lesson in misdirection because you’re looking at Teller as he’s throwing a ball to the audience, and you’re not watching Penn as he’s placing the cups back down. And in this beautiful chaos of choreography, the lesson, the sort of aesthetic beauty of it, is you’re seeing how it’s done, but you really aren’t seeing how it’s done at all.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This trick is the ultimate flex. I watched it on YouTube after my conversation with Joshua Jay multiple times.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Eventually, I did see the key move, Teller placing the right ball exactly where it needed to be to make the trick work, in full view of the audience. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Place it on our hand and show it. Take a third and final ball, pretend to place it in our hand. Pretend to show the cup. We place it in the cup. Then secretly reveal it. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> How did I miss it so many times? How did I see without seeing? It really drove home how easily we can be led to believe something false, even when the truth is right in front of us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>…The finish. It’s an American baseball right there. That’s the Penn and Teller Cups and Balls. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Think about this in terms of interacting with a chatbot. It’s like we know that they are machines. We know that we are actively being fooled in some way, and yet we might still feel understood, affirmed, cared for. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> You know, the implicit agreement when you see a magic show is you’re saying when you sit down to watch, I know you’re going to try to fool me and I want to be fooled, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, you know that there is a deception at hand. You know that there’s going to be things that hopefully if they do their job, the magician does that you will not understand how it works. And I think that the uncomfortability comes in real life in that sometimes there’s not that implicit handshake going on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Look, in a magic show, you’re fooled. There’s no way around it. People don’t like that word. Some people do like that word, but call it whatever you like. We can’t soften it. You’re going to be fooled. You’re going to see something you don’t understand and you’re not supposed to understand it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But that’s what’s beautiful about it is that’s out in the open. That is made explicit. Whereas with some aspects of AI, with some aspects of technology in general, we don’t know where the human element ends and where the AI begins. And that can be really unsettling for people because they may not feel like, hey, look, when I started this conversation, I didn’t know I wasn’t talking to a human, you know.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Of course, none of this “being fooled” is by accident. Chatbots are generally designed to mimic humans. They refer to themselves in the first person as I or me. They act interested in what we’re saying, asking questions to nudge the conversation forward, and they learn about us, first through extensive training on human language and behavior, and then increasingly through interactions with us, adapting to our personal preferences and detecting our mood shifts in real time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This learning to read human beings, that’s something magicians do too. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I say that you’re always watching the magician and that’s how you think of a magic show, but we’re watching you too. And that little shift in perspective is something I don’t think most people think about. You know, during my opening trick, which has been the same for years now, and I can do it, you know, sort of on autopilot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I don’t have to think very deeply. It helps me establish my rhythm. But in my head, what I’m doing is I am plotting the rest of the show based on the hand I’m dealt. Ooh, these people in the back left have a lot of sight line issues. I’m gonna really need to connect with them to make sure they can see and do that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Or, you know all the waiters are opening this kitchen door in the back of the theater that’s making it really noisy, and so these people are gonna need to be babysat a little more to make sure they’re super engaged. In magic what I’m looking for on stage is somebody who is not going to be afraid.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, the first thing I look for before anything else is I’m looking for somebody who is exuding confidence. And a big indicator of confidence is eye contact. You know, it’s so crazy when I say like, “I need someone to help with this next thing,” there are just so many people in an audience who immediately think if they don’t look at me, then somehow, I won’t pick them. And it’s really pronounced when you’re like, as a magician, looking in the audience as you walk through an aisle, left and right. You just see people just totally thinking that they won’t be seen if they’re not… And I’m like, “I can see you even though you’re not looking at me.” But really, you’re looking for somebody who’s got great eye contact and who looks like they’re enjoying the show. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And there’s usually like a little test. So, if I can narrow it down to two or three people who I think, “Oh, this person would be just great on stage,” I might say- “Welcome to the show.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I won’t invite them. I might say, “Welcome to the show, sir. Where are you from?” “I’m from Canton, Ohio.” “Okay. And, what’s this? Why are you, traveling with a suitcase to a magic show?” You know. And if they’re stiff, if they’re giving one-word answers, if they’re sort of like a deer in headlights, maybe I can say, “Well, thanks for coming.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I appreciate you being here. And what about you? What’s your story? Who are you here with?” Right? And you’re just looking for somebody to be like, “Well, I wasn’t even supposed to be here tonight, but my friend Janie, she dragged me to the show and now I’m so glad I came.” Well, there’s a chatty person. That sounds fun. So, I might use that person. And similarly, if I need somebody who is a little bit more submissive in the sense that they’re gonna follow my directions and not give me a hard time-… if I say, “Hold out both hands like this. Put one coin in this hand, one coin…” I don’t want that person switching hands with the coins or you know, when I turn around- trying to throw me off. So, in that case, you might do just the opposite. You might choose somebody who is a little afraid. Sounds a little dark, but maybe you do want somebody who’s a little more easily intimidated so that they will follow your directions exactly as you lay them out and not give you a hard time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, each trick I have kind of the archetype of what I’m looking for and what would be best, and I’m gonna try and fit that puzzle piece with the piece that fits in the gap there. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Josh says that this notion of reading people correctly, it can be pretty high stakes. These are dynamic encounters that go in very different directions depending on just what kind of energy you’re getting back.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I was doing a show a few months ago, I thought I picked the perfect person. There was a woman, who was just giving great eye contact. She looked to be having a blast. She was even a little bit chatty, which I think in the end was what did me in. You know, she just seemed so confident and comfortable on stage, and it was a big crowd. It was more than 1,000 people. So, I thought she’s gonna be perfect. I noted it, and at the right moment, invited her on stage. What I didn’t realize until she came up was, she was loaded drunk. I mean, she was so drunk she could not follow basic instructions. She couldn’t stop talking. She was disruptive. And in the beginning, that’s funny, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I’m not a comedy magician, so my purpose isn’t just to make people laugh. It’s to show them, I hope, things that are truly amazing, and if they laugh along the way- awesome. So okay immediately I have to reassess and go, we can make some comedy out of this, but the magic is gonna suffer if she can’t be quiet and follow directions and help us navigate to this amazing moment that’s coming up.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And she couldn’t. Right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> She couldn’t. And so, you try and limp to the close and just think, “Next time I won’t make this mistake.” But in this case, I had to do the rarest thing of all, which is dismiss somebody. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Oh, my goodness! \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And you just say, “Do me a favor, grab your seat and I need you to come up now.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I actually had to do the switch mid-trick, which I very rarely, I can’t remember the last time, I picked someone so wrong that I had to recalibrate like that. But you know, this is what happens when you are on the road 300 days a year. You’re gonna have nightmare nights at the office. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, when I hear this, I think, you know, the exception is what proves the rule. You know, the fact that this happens so rarely suggests that you are quite good at reading the room and reading people in ways that they I mean, yeah, I guess somebody who’s had a dozen cocktails probably knows that they’re going to embarrass themselves on stage. But for the most part, you’re picking up on tells that people might not even be aware that they have.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I guess I’m harping on this because when I think about machines that aren’t just reading our posture or looking for eye contact or are looking at, you know, beginning the data collection process the second we walk into the room. They learn about us for months, years and they’re able to gather a wide range of data about us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, I start wondering, you know, what that starts to look like and I would ask you, are we more manipulable than we realize? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yes, emphatically yes. I think that there are so many insights that are so scary to a magician when you start applying it to real life. Like, there are so many- One of the basic tenets of magic is that if you tell an audience something, it is a tenth as effective if you can find a way to let that audience tell themselves, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So let me give you an example. If I come out, this is like a classic amateur magician’s move. If I come out and I say, “Ladies and gentlemen, a regular deck of cards,” that is wrong for every possible reason. Because if I just said, “Do me a favor, give these a shuffle, and then I want you to take one out that you like and write your name on it.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You will never in that interaction question the deck of cards because it’s a deck of cards. I’m handling it like you would handle a deck of cards if you handed it to a friend between rounds of dealing poker, right? Take the deck of cards, shuffle it up, take a card out. You would never think, “Are there 52 in there? Are they all the same shape? Is one shorter than another one? Is there more than one ace of spades in that deck?” You would never ask those questions because I’ve presented it in a casual manner, and I’ve given you a task. But the minute you say, “Ladies and gentlemen, a regulation pack of cards,” instantly you go, “Well, is it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Well, I didn’t see it. Can I see it? Do you mind if I shuffle? Can I count those cards? Can I hold them up to a light? Can I shuffle and make sure they’re all the same thickness,” right? But if I give you the deck and I say, “Shuffle them up and take out any one that you like,” I’m letting you tell yourself it’s a regular deck because you put your fingers on it, you shuffle it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Now, you may be shuffling a deck that’s got all sorts of quirky, subtle things wrong with it, but you will be telling yourself it’s a normal deck because it feels right. When I look through to take out a card, nothing looked out of place. And now you’re telling yourself, and that’s a much more effective way to deceive somebody because you’re telling yourself.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Josh says that the best magicians don’t just shape how people experience something in the moment. They can also change what we later remember about a moment. For instance, a magician might appear to drop a coin, and then somehow it vanishes. Cool trick. But the magician doesn’t stop there. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And if a minute later I say, “And you watched that coin as it fell from my hand and disintegrated in midair,” well, that’s a really great word, disintegrated, right? And it colors your memory. Maybe I refer to it two or three more times in the show, “And then it just disappeared, and it disintegrated, and when it got to my knee level, it just turned to dust.” And you can have people leaving swearing that they saw a coin vanish down here. And that’s the next frontier of magic is really manipulating memories.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> If you were a less ethical person, do you think you could get people to do things against their will? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I mean… I think that the overarching lesson that I’ve, that I’m continually shocked about in magic in this regard is how easily people can be duped into believing things. I mean, it’s so crazy to me that, you know, I do a magic show that is meant to amaze and delight, but in no way is it meant to skirt the line of reality and make people actually believe. You know, there are performers like David Blaine, Uri Geller, and Oz Pearlman, who, you know, people see those performers and sort of go, “So wait, is that a trick or is that person really doing that?” And I don’t have that kind of approach, and still, not sometimes, very often people come up to me after shows and they’ll say really touching but misguided things like, “Hey, can you give me advice on this job I’m about to take? Cause I, you know, that trick you did where you were able to predict the future, I’m just wondering if you…” You know, you just wanna pull them aside and say, “This is pure entertainment. Like, I can’t give you life advice like that. I can’t actually see the future. This is fun.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“But you got my passcode off my phone. I’ve never told anybody that in my life.” “Yes, that’s a trick. I predicted your passcode.” Right. “Well, if you can tell my passcode, can you just tell me just a little advice? Should I take this job and move to Phoenix or not?” And it’s like, you know, you see that with certain people, they’re looking for an excuse to believe. They’re looking for it, and the more you say it’s not real, the more they want to believe it is real, and that’s scary stuff.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> My takeaway so far in this conversation, buckle up. We better hope for a rapid learning curve as we adjust to life alongside artificial intelligences that feel real, that have been designed to seem real, but simply aren’t. My worry is that knowing we’re talking to a machine won’t ever be enough. Just like Teller’s baseball, even those rare occasions where we can see what’s happening under the hood won’t stop the illusion, because we want to believe the illusion. Because the illusion doesn’t just come from the machine, it comes from us. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>These are early innings. I’ll be very curious about how these chatbots change over time and the many ways they are welcomed or inserted into our lives. After the break, a pivot. I ask my guests, how is technology changing magic? And if you’re thinking, “Not that much,” you would be wrong.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s after the break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>You might think that sleight of hand magic hasn’t changed much over the decades. A card trick, cups and balls, these are all pretty analog. Automation shouldn’t have too much of an impact. But the truth is, all performances are interactions between performer and audience. So even when technology doesn’t change the performer, it changes the audience.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Technology has always had an uneasy relationship to magic, and there are all sorts of tricks that we can’t do anymore for the simple reason that what even 20 years ago people would have gone, “That is the most amazing thing I could imagine you doing.” Now we would go, “Oh, we have an app for that.” I mean, there’s like a great trick where you predict a song that’s playing, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And now you couldn’t do that trick cause people would go, “Yes, it’s an app. I had it 15 years ago. It’s called Shazam. You press this button and three seconds later it tells you the album and the song and the link to listen to it.” Like, all the tricks along that genre, they’re just out. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> You told this story about doing one of your famous dollar bill tricks for somebody, and then they immediately took out their phone and they Googled, you know, how did Josh Jay do this dollar bill trick?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then they, like, just played the video in front of everybody, and you said it was not a great moment. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Right. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> How do you deal with that? How do you deal with the fact that the answers so many of these tricks, the ability to watch it again and again and again from any angle that someone might have captured, are available to everybody at every moment?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Well, you’ve hit upon, you know, a really important and sort of topical crisis in our industry, which is that a lot of people are going on YouTube and doing tutorials of tricks that don’t belong to them and classic tricks and really good tricks. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> The particular dollar bill trick that got Josh is one of those classics that people can now look up on YouTube.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Josh sees two strategies that magicians can use to get around this problem. The first being to avoid the classics altogether. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> But if you’re doing a trick that thousands of other magicians are doing, you’re at great risk that that trick will be searchable and, you know, easily found online. Whereas if I’m doing something totally original, good luck searching for it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You’re not gonna find that trick because I created that trick and it’s not published and it’s not anywhere to be found in a searchable way. So that’s one way. Another way is magicians have to get really clever at disguising what it looks like. They have to mesh together several methods and several tricks so that somebody looks at it and goes, “You know, I don’t know. He borrowed my house key, and then he bent it, and then it vanished- … and it appeared in a lock across the room.” You know, that’s not a searchable term, whereas changing a $1 bill into $100 bill is easily searchable. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And yeah, so at the same time as it is making a lot of parts of your life as a magician more difficult, it also might be raising the rewards to true novelty and creativity and innovation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> That’s how I’m choosing to look at it, and maybe I’m, like, choosing to look at it with rose-tinted glasses because I like that process. But, you know, in my head, the healthiest magic community in the world is one in which everybody’s doing their own material. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, we don’t give much attention to bands that only play covers. They play in bars for 30 people. If you write your own music and you become successful at that, you can tour arenas and have a career that is way more outsized than a cover band ever could. We don’t reward comedians who just repeat the jokes of, you know, a smorgasbord of all their favorite comedians. We reward people who come up with original monologues, and we can’t wait to hear the latest Chappelle or Nate Bargatze or Seinfeld hour because we know it’s gonna be their point of view. So, my ultimate ideal in magic, it would be, you know, all magicians doing their own stuff. Now, magic has developed at a much slower pace than comedy and even songwriting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I mean, it takes years to perfect a really great magic trick. So that’s a high bar indeed, but my hope is that this negative will end up being a positive and that magicians will take a cue from this and start really obscuring what they’re doing in such a way that it’s either mostly original or completely original.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, technology is changing magic, but Josh says it won’t be taking over anytime soon. For instance, most magicians who choose to use AI are using it to help them tweak their script a bit, not to design tricks wholesale. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> AI can help you find a moment in history that you would have never turned up that’s the perfect way to theatrically get into a trick on coincidence or a trick on transformation, and now you’ve given it this great context about this amazing thing that happened in Victorian England. And, you know, that’s, I think, a way that AI is really gonna help performers because like so many things, we don’t want AI to dehumanize magic. Magic will be one of the great things left when AI is fully integrated into everything else that people will go to for a truly human experience. I mean, what besides eating and watching movies will be left that isn’t entirely, you know, affected by AI?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Let’s talk about this. You describe the period from the 1870s to the 1930s as the “Golden Age of Magic”. Yeah. Could we, you know, see a resurgence to a new Golden Age of Magic? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of evidence to say that in a sense we are in another golden age. I mean, take some metrics. Because of TikTok and Instagram and just magic being online generally, and add to that the fact that America’s Got Talent and Fool Us are putting magic in front of millions of people in their homes that didn’t used to be there- More people are watching magic than have ever watched it in history.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Fact. Not, and it’s not close. It’s not like marginally more. Like, exponentially more people are watching magic than ever have. Another objective fact is that there are now more venues to perform magic than there have ever been at any point in my life or in the previous 50 years. So, I also have emprivated data because I co-own, a magic shop called Vanishing Inc., where we sell magic and we publish books, and I can tell you that we are selling to a larger group of people than magic shops used to sell to. They used to be quite localized, and thanks to the internet, we can now sell all over the world. And the industry itself is growing. You can just feel that there are more people interested in magic every day and not less. So, in those regards, anecdotally, I would say to you, we might be in a golden age and not know it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> You describe magic as being a product of its time, and you give this great example of the famous trick of sawing a woman in half being the perfect trick when it emerged after World War I. All of a sudden it was hitting an audience that was maybe a little bit more desensitized to violence, more open to women, playing different roles in society, including one where presumably they get chopped in half. And I wanna ask you, what would be the perfect trick for 2026? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Oh. Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, that’s a really tough question. I mean, I would say to zoom out for a second and buy myself a minute to think, I would say that the greatest magic trick, and not just in 2026, ever, is always the trick that is perfect for the situation you’re in at that moment, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I talk in the book, you might remember, about the ham sandwich theory, and for those readers who haven’t read my book, like, this is such a great illustration of what magic can be at its ultimate fullest expression, which is that if I reach up behind your ear right now, Jessica, and pull out a ham sandwich from nowhere, and you don’t know how it’s done, you’re gonna look at me and go, “That was random,” because it is.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s totally random. It’s not interesting. It’s not logical. I just pulled a ham sandwich out. It’s arbitrary. But if instead you said to me, “Gosh, Josh, I am starving. I’m just… I’m really in the mood for a ham sandwich. Is that weird to say?” And I then went, “Oh, yeah?” And now I pull a ham sandwich out of your ear- \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I have fulfilled a need. I have responded to a need you created, and now that magic is everything to you. It’s personal. It felt directly tailored to something you had. It fulfilled a need, hunger that you were feeling at that moment. So, whatever the answer is to your question, it would have to be something that’s specific to an audience in 2026.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I want to push Josh here. What does the perfect trick look like in 2026 with technology constantly shifting the boundaries between that’s awesome and yeah, that’s an app? What happens to an art form so cognizant of the limits of human cognition when everyone carries around a device that seems to know everything and never forget?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Well, maybe it calls attention to that very device. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I always see things through the lens of what I’m working on, and I’m working on a trick where we turn off all the lights in the theater, which is instantly and immediately fascinating to me because it gets to be this change of scenery, right? And I have everybody take out their cell phones and put their light on. So, you get that little concert vibe going where they’re moving their light around, and it looks like twinkling stars in this huge theater, right? And all these people are here. And I’m working on a trick where they are whittled down. So, through a series of choices that the audience makes, I would say, “Okay, if you were born in September, stay standing with your light on. Everybody else sit down, turn your phone off.” And it goes from 1,000 lights to… 30 lights. And you whittle them down all the way until you get one person with a light, and then you predict that person’s phone number, which is the thing that they’re holding- the whole time, and you’re right there, and how could you have known it would be them, and the choices that were made.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then the very light they’re holding has the phone number, and that’s what I’m working on, and that’s what I’ll call the ultimate trick in 2026 cause I haven’t fully figured out how I’m doing it yet. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh my gosh. Well, I just love hearing you talk about this knowing that you don’t even fully know how you’re going to do it yet.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Like, it seems like as a creator, you think about how do I want the audience to feel, what should they be paying attention to, what should they be thinking about, and then eventually you get back to the mechanism of how you pull this all off. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yes. It’s exactly that. And that was a really important shift for me is not to become obsessed with method, not to get bogged down by well, that would be great, but I don’t know how to do it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think that all my best things have come out of me sort of going I’m not gonna think about how this could be done. I just wanna play out in my mind what it would look like if I could do it. And then I need to figure out a way to do it. And, you know, you fall on your face a lot, and you realize, like, well, I can’t do that, but I could do this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And you might fall short of the ideal, but at least you’re thinking… in the minds of the audience, and I think that’s a really good place to start. You know, empathy is a really important tool for a magician, and I imagine it’s probably a huge focus of everybody who’s helping to design AI is to think empathically, to think like your audience.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, the first thing you have to do as a magician is get out of your own head and to try to get into the head of the people you’re performing for. What do they wanna see? What would they think if you did this? How would they react if you did this?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Empathy as one of the ultimate superpowers? Yeah, I buy that. Human creators of all stripes have long recognized its power. Magicians like Joshua Jay rely on empathy to create experiences that delight, and stun, and fill a need. Engineers rely on empathy to imagine how users will engage with confusing or intimidating tools.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What’s different is that now we have machines that empathize, too, or at least convincingly perform empathy. Which brings us right back to where we started, me going to my chatbot three days later to report back on how that email landed, the email we carefully crafted together. As that line between what we perceive to be reality versus magic continues to blur before our eyes, I’m glad to have the occasional magician as a tour guide.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love. Life, Automated is a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. We’re distributed by KQED. Our show was produced by Jesse Dukes. Music by Stephen Jackson. Recording help from Will Feeney, George Christensen, and Leila Mohammed. Administrative support, recording, and wise counsel from Stacia Sliger.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>When people go to a magic show, they expect to be fooled. That’s part of the fun. And magician \u003ca href=\"https://www.joshuajay.com/\">Joshua Jay\u003c/a> says much of the magician’s work is helping people fool themselves. Our brains are hardwired to fill in gaps, predict outcomes, and take cognitive shortcuts to process the overwhelming amount of information around us. When interacting with AI chatbots, we may similarly fool ourselves into believing we’re interacting with a human. But unlike at a magic show, it’s not always clear when the trick is over. Plus: how AI is changing magic.\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Welcome to Life Automated, the show where we explore what it means to live, work, and make decisions in a rapidly automating world. I’m Jess Love. I’ve been known, in moments of excitement or confusion or overwhelm, to turn to a chatbot, just to share, “Hey, this is what I’m thinking I’ll do next. Here’s how I want to approach this situation.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Welcome to Life Automated, the show where we explore what it means to live, work, and make decisions in a rapidly automating world. I’m Jess Love. I’ve been known, in moments of excitement or confusion or overwhelm, to turn to a chatbot, just to share, “Hey, this is what I’m thinking I’ll do next. Here’s how I want to approach this situation.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’ll even occasionally return to provide an update. Maybe this isn’t ideal. I know how sycophantic chatbots can be, telling me how thoughtful and clever my plans are unless I sternly direct them to act like dream-crushing jerks. But I can’t deny that the experience is pleasant. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I’ll even occasionally return to provide an update. Maybe this isn’t ideal. I know how sycophantic chatbots can be, telling me how thoughtful and clever my plans are unless I sternly direct them to act like dream-crushing jerks. But I can’t deny that the experience is pleasant. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Like if your diary could write back. And yes, on some level, I know this is a machine trained to keep me engaging with it, and yet don’t I still feel a little validated when that response comes back? A little heard? There is no precedent for this. In every other moment in history, feeling like you’re talking back and forth with a real person has meant you’re connecting with a real person, someone who understands you, someone offering you their finite attention.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Like if your diary could write back. And yes, on some level, I know this is a machine trained to keep me engaging with it, and yet don’t I still feel a little validated when that response comes back? A little heard? There is no precedent for this. In every other moment in history, feeling like you’re talking back and forth with a real person has meant you’re connecting with a real person, someone who understands you, someone offering you their finite attention.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And we’ve evolved to take pleasure in these interactions, to seek them out, because that’s kept our species connected and alive. But with chatbots, this ancient link between the appearance of a mind and an actual mind no longer holds, and it’s really hard to know what to make of that. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And we’ve evolved to take pleasure in these interactions, to seek them out, because that’s kept our species connected and alive. But with chatbots, this ancient link between the appearance of a mind and an actual mind no longer holds, and it’s really hard to know what to make of that. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There are people who obsess over this gap between what we intellectually know to be true and what we experience as real. Only they’re not AI researchers — they’re magicians. Today’s conversation is with one of the finest. Joshua Jay has performed his sleight-of-hand magic all around the world, including on major talk shows and for US presidents, and he’s a total magic nerd, the author of several books about magic, including “How Magicians Think.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>There are people who obsess over this gap between what we intellectually know to be true and what we experience as real. Only they’re not AI researchers — they’re magicians. Today’s conversation is with one of the finest. Joshua Jay has performed his sleight-of-hand magic all around the world, including on major talk shows and for US presidents, and he’s a total magic nerd, the author of several books about magic, including “How Magicians Think.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And he’s not gonna teach us about algorithms. Instead, he’ll teach us to see ourselves the way he sees us, as people whose attention can be commanded and redirected, whose memories can be shifted, and as active participants in our own deception. We also talk about the surprising ways that technology is changing magic.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And he’s not gonna teach us about algorithms. Instead, he’ll teach us to see ourselves the way he sees us, as people whose attention can be commanded and redirected, whose memories can be shifted, and as active participants in our own deception. We also talk about the surprising ways that technology is changing magic.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>From Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, this is Life Automated, distributed by KQED. Here’s my conversation with Joshua Jay. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke famously said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” And I think for a lot of people, sitting down in front of a chatbot for the first time, that was kind of the experience.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke famously said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” And I think for a lot of people, sitting down in front of a chatbot for the first time, that was kind of the experience.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Magic. There was this thing, this machine doing something that we didn’t think that machines could do. It was interacting with us in real time, in our own language, in meaningful ways. So, I wanted to ask you, as an actual magician, somebody who thinks about how emotions like awe and surprise are created, what was your first experience using a chatbot like, and did it in any way feel like a magic trick?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. It’s such a great question, and it’s such a relevant question for me as a magician because we are deliverers of certain emotion, which is what you’re talking about, this awe, this like I don’t even know how this is happening, but it’s happening anyway. You know, Teller said so beautifully that magic is the difference between what you see and what you know.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. It’s such a great question, and it’s such a relevant question for me as a magician because we are deliverers of certain emotion, which is what you’re talking about, this awe, this like I don’t even know how this is happening, but it’s happening anyway. You know, Teller said so beautifully that magic is the difference between what you see and what you know.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, you’re having a conversation with this entity and you know it’s not a person, and yet you’re having this conversation. So, the crisis is always we are deliverers of this feeling of astonishment, and yet by virtue of the fact that we know how all of this is done, we often don’t get that sense of awe, and we don’t get amazed very often.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, you’re having a conversation with this entity and you know it’s not a person, and yet you’re having this conversation. So, the crisis is always we are deliverers of this feeling of astonishment, and yet by virtue of the fact that we know how all of this is done, we often don’t get that sense of awe, and we don’t get amazed very often.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, the first time that I engaged with AI and was… You know, that first time you take the plunge and you’re just asking, you’re having a conversation with a thing, I was truly astonished. And I felt like, wow, this is probably what it feels like to watch a magic show and just be amazed at everything. And so yeah, I absolutely was totally and utterly amazed and felt like, as we call you guys, “laypeople”, I felt like a layperson. I felt like a muggle. And, it was really fantastic. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, the first time that I engaged with AI and was… You know, that first time you take the plunge and you’re just asking, you’re having a conversation with a thing, I was truly astonished. And I felt like, wow, this is probably what it feels like to watch a magic show and just be amazed at everything. And so yeah, I absolutely was totally and utterly amazed and felt like, as we call you guys, “laypeople”, I felt like a layperson. I felt like a muggle. And, it was really fantastic. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> You just brought up, Teller, of course, of the very famous duo ‘Penn & Teller’, and they have this trick. It’s kind of a classic trick where they’re moving balls in cups as magicians do. We call you guys- magicians, us muggles.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> You just brought up, Teller, of course, of the very famous duo ‘Penn & Teller’, and they have this trick. It’s kind of a classic trick where they’re moving balls in cups as magicians do. We call you guys- magicians, us muggles.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Only they use clear cups, so you can actually see what’s happening. And that really kind of reminds me of what you were just talking about, this idea of knowing without knowing. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. You know, I find myself thinking so often when I’m performing, like, you know, you do something, and hopefully somebody really likes it and they scream in all the right places.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. You know, I find myself thinking so often when I’m performing, like, you know, you do something, and hopefully somebody really likes it and they scream in all the right places.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But what I’m thinking most of the time is, “Oh, you guys aren’t even seeing the coolest part. If you could see how this works, you would be even more flipped out.” Because sometimes you’re fooled by something that’s so much simpler than you could expect. And very often, and this is such a beautiful topic that it’s its own deep dive- The magician doesn’t fool you; you fool yourself.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But what I’m thinking most of the time is, “Oh, you guys aren’t even seeing the coolest part. If you could see how this works, you would be even more flipped out.” Because sometimes you’re fooled by something that’s so much simpler than you could expect. And very often, and this is such a beautiful topic that it’s its own deep dive- The magician doesn’t fool you; you fool yourself.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And there is a difference. You know, some things it is the magician. It’s sleight-of-hand. It’s a gizmo you couldn’t possibly anticipate, a technology you’re not aware of. But often, you fool yourself with assumptions you make and the psychology that’s being used on you. So, it is this really interesting thing that you bring up where as great as magic feels to a muggle, to a layperson, you don’t even see the best part often.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And there is a difference. You know, some things it is the magician. It’s sleight-of-hand. It’s a gizmo you couldn’t possibly anticipate, a technology you’re not aware of. But often, you fool yourself with assumptions you make and the psychology that’s being used on you. So, it is this really interesting thing that you bring up where as great as magic feels to a muggle, to a layperson, you don’t even see the best part often.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And, you know, you bring up this classic Penn and Teller piece, and they have many pieces like this, where they said, “We’re gonna do cups and balls,” but then in the middle of the trick, after they do a classic cups and balls with opaque cups and normal-sized balls, they do it again, but they do it with clear cups.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And, you know, you bring up this classic Penn and Teller piece, and they have many pieces like this, where they said, “We’re gonna do cups and balls,” but then in the middle of the trick, after they do a classic cups and balls with opaque cups and normal-sized balls, they do it again, but they do it with clear cups.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>As it goes with breaking a few rules of magic. Now, the first rule of magic is you never do the same trick twice. So, we’re good. Second rule of magic is you never tell an audience how a trick is being done. So, we’re gonna tell you exactly how the trick is being done. The third rule of magic is you never let the audience see your secret preparation.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>As it goes with breaking a few rules of magic. Now, the first rule of magic is you never do the same trick twice. So, we’re good. Second rule of magic is you never tell an audience how a trick is being done. So, we’re gonna tell you exactly how the trick is being done. The third rule of magic is you never let the audience see your secret preparation.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And even though if you were to zoom in on the right part, you would see how it works, it’s really a lesson in misdirection because you’re looking at Teller as he’s throwing a ball to the audience, and you’re not watching Penn as he’s placing the cups back down. And in this beautiful chaos of choreography, the lesson, the sort of aesthetic beauty of it, is you’re seeing how it’s done, but you really aren’t seeing how it’s done at all.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And even though if you were to zoom in on the right part, you would see how it works, it’s really a lesson in misdirection because you’re looking at Teller as he’s throwing a ball to the audience, and you’re not watching Penn as he’s placing the cups back down. And in this beautiful chaos of choreography, the lesson, the sort of aesthetic beauty of it, is you’re seeing how it’s done, but you really aren’t seeing how it’s done at all.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This trick is the ultimate flex. I watched it on YouTube after my conversation with Joshua Jay multiple times.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This trick is the ultimate flex. I watched it on YouTube after my conversation with Joshua Jay multiple times.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Eventually, I did see the key move, Teller placing the right ball exactly where it needed to be to make the trick work, in full view of the audience. \u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Eventually, I did see the key move, Teller placing the right ball exactly where it needed to be to make the trick work, in full view of the audience. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Place it on our hand and show it. Take a third and final ball, pretend to place it in our hand. Pretend to show the cup. We place it in the cup. Then secretly reveal it. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Place it on our hand and show it. Take a third and final ball, pretend to place it in our hand. Pretend to show the cup. We place it in the cup. Then secretly reveal it. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> How did I miss it so many times? How did I see without seeing? It really drove home how easily we can be led to believe something false, even when the truth is right in front of us.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> How did I miss it so many times? How did I see without seeing? It really drove home how easily we can be led to believe something false, even when the truth is right in front of us.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>…The finish. It’s an American baseball right there. That’s the Penn and Teller Cups and Balls. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>…The finish. It’s an American baseball right there. That’s the Penn and Teller Cups and Balls. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Think about this in terms of interacting with a chatbot. It’s like we know that they are machines. We know that we are actively being fooled in some way, and yet we might still feel understood, affirmed, cared for. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Think about this in terms of interacting with a chatbot. It’s like we know that they are machines. We know that we are actively being fooled in some way, and yet we might still feel understood, affirmed, cared for. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> You know, the implicit agreement when you see a magic show is you’re saying when you sit down to watch, I know you’re going to try to fool me and I want to be fooled, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> You know, the implicit agreement when you see a magic show is you’re saying when you sit down to watch, I know you’re going to try to fool me and I want to be fooled, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, you know that there is a deception at hand. You know that there’s going to be things that hopefully if they do their job, the magician does that you will not understand how it works. And I think that the uncomfortability comes in real life in that sometimes there’s not that implicit handshake going on.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, you know that there is a deception at hand. You know that there’s going to be things that hopefully if they do their job, the magician does that you will not understand how it works. And I think that the uncomfortability comes in real life in that sometimes there’s not that implicit handshake going on.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Look, in a magic show, you’re fooled. There’s no way around it. People don’t like that word. Some people do like that word, but call it whatever you like. We can’t soften it. You’re going to be fooled. You’re going to see something you don’t understand and you’re not supposed to understand it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Look, in a magic show, you’re fooled. There’s no way around it. People don’t like that word. Some people do like that word, but call it whatever you like. We can’t soften it. You’re going to be fooled. You’re going to see something you don’t understand and you’re not supposed to understand it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But that’s what’s beautiful about it is that’s out in the open. That is made explicit. Whereas with some aspects of AI, with some aspects of technology in general, we don’t know where the human element ends and where the AI begins. And that can be really unsettling for people because they may not feel like, hey, look, when I started this conversation, I didn’t know I wasn’t talking to a human, you know.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But that’s what’s beautiful about it is that’s out in the open. That is made explicit. Whereas with some aspects of AI, with some aspects of technology in general, we don’t know where the human element ends and where the AI begins. And that can be really unsettling for people because they may not feel like, hey, look, when I started this conversation, I didn’t know I wasn’t talking to a human, you know.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Of course, none of this “being fooled” is by accident. Chatbots are generally designed to mimic humans. They refer to themselves in the first person as I or me. They act interested in what we’re saying, asking questions to nudge the conversation forward, and they learn about us, first through extensive training on human language and behavior, and then increasingly through interactions with us, adapting to our personal preferences and detecting our mood shifts in real time.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Of course, none of this “being fooled” is by accident. Chatbots are generally designed to mimic humans. They refer to themselves in the first person as I or me. They act interested in what we’re saying, asking questions to nudge the conversation forward, and they learn about us, first through extensive training on human language and behavior, and then increasingly through interactions with us, adapting to our personal preferences and detecting our mood shifts in real time.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This learning to read human beings, that’s something magicians do too. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>This learning to read human beings, that’s something magicians do too. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I say that you’re always watching the magician and that’s how you think of a magic show, but we’re watching you too. And that little shift in perspective is something I don’t think most people think about. You know, during my opening trick, which has been the same for years now, and I can do it, you know, sort of on autopilot.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I say that you’re always watching the magician and that’s how you think of a magic show, but we’re watching you too. And that little shift in perspective is something I don’t think most people think about. You know, during my opening trick, which has been the same for years now, and I can do it, you know, sort of on autopilot.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I don’t have to think very deeply. It helps me establish my rhythm. But in my head, what I’m doing is I am plotting the rest of the show based on the hand I’m dealt. Ooh, these people in the back left have a lot of sight line issues. I’m gonna really need to connect with them to make sure they can see and do that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I don’t have to think very deeply. It helps me establish my rhythm. But in my head, what I’m doing is I am plotting the rest of the show based on the hand I’m dealt. Ooh, these people in the back left have a lot of sight line issues. I’m gonna really need to connect with them to make sure they can see and do that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Or, you know all the waiters are opening this kitchen door in the back of the theater that’s making it really noisy, and so these people are gonna need to be babysat a little more to make sure they’re super engaged. In magic what I’m looking for on stage is somebody who is not going to be afraid.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Or, you know all the waiters are opening this kitchen door in the back of the theater that’s making it really noisy, and so these people are gonna need to be babysat a little more to make sure they’re super engaged. In magic what I’m looking for on stage is somebody who is not going to be afraid.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so, the first thing I look for before anything else is I’m looking for somebody who is exuding confidence. And a big indicator of confidence is eye contact. You know, it’s so crazy when I say like, “I need someone to help with this next thing,” there are just so many people in an audience who immediately think if they don’t look at me, then somehow, I won’t pick them. And it’s really pronounced when you’re like, as a magician, looking in the audience as you walk through an aisle, left and right. You just see people just totally thinking that they won’t be seen if they’re not… And I’m like, “I can see you even though you’re not looking at me.” But really, you’re looking for somebody who’s got great eye contact and who looks like they’re enjoying the show. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so, the first thing I look for before anything else is I’m looking for somebody who is exuding confidence. And a big indicator of confidence is eye contact. You know, it’s so crazy when I say like, “I need someone to help with this next thing,” there are just so many people in an audience who immediately think if they don’t look at me, then somehow, I won’t pick them. And it’s really pronounced when you’re like, as a magician, looking in the audience as you walk through an aisle, left and right. You just see people just totally thinking that they won’t be seen if they’re not… And I’m like, “I can see you even though you’re not looking at me.” But really, you’re looking for somebody who’s got great eye contact and who looks like they’re enjoying the show. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And there’s usually like a little test. So, if I can narrow it down to two or three people who I think, “Oh, this person would be just great on stage,” I might say- “Welcome to the show.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And there’s usually like a little test. So, if I can narrow it down to two or three people who I think, “Oh, this person would be just great on stage,” I might say- “Welcome to the show.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I won’t invite them. I might say, “Welcome to the show, sir. Where are you from?” “I’m from Canton, Ohio.” “Okay. And, what’s this? Why are you, traveling with a suitcase to a magic show?” You know. And if they’re stiff, if they’re giving one-word answers, if they’re sort of like a deer in headlights, maybe I can say, “Well, thanks for coming.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I won’t invite them. I might say, “Welcome to the show, sir. Where are you from?” “I’m from Canton, Ohio.” “Okay. And, what’s this? Why are you, traveling with a suitcase to a magic show?” You know. And if they’re stiff, if they’re giving one-word answers, if they’re sort of like a deer in headlights, maybe I can say, “Well, thanks for coming.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I appreciate you being here. And what about you? What’s your story? Who are you here with?” Right? And you’re just looking for somebody to be like, “Well, I wasn’t even supposed to be here tonight, but my friend Janie, she dragged me to the show and now I’m so glad I came.” Well, there’s a chatty person. That sounds fun. So, I might use that person. And similarly, if I need somebody who is a little bit more submissive in the sense that they’re gonna follow my directions and not give me a hard time-… if I say, “Hold out both hands like this. Put one coin in this hand, one coin…” I don’t want that person switching hands with the coins or you know, when I turn around- trying to throw me off. So, in that case, you might do just the opposite. You might choose somebody who is a little afraid. Sounds a little dark, but maybe you do want somebody who’s a little more easily intimidated so that they will follow your directions exactly as you lay them out and not give you a hard time.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I appreciate you being here. And what about you? What’s your story? Who are you here with?” Right? And you’re just looking for somebody to be like, “Well, I wasn’t even supposed to be here tonight, but my friend Janie, she dragged me to the show and now I’m so glad I came.” Well, there’s a chatty person. That sounds fun. So, I might use that person. And similarly, if I need somebody who is a little bit more submissive in the sense that they’re gonna follow my directions and not give me a hard time-… if I say, “Hold out both hands like this. Put one coin in this hand, one coin…” I don’t want that person switching hands with the coins or you know, when I turn around- trying to throw me off. So, in that case, you might do just the opposite. You might choose somebody who is a little afraid. Sounds a little dark, but maybe you do want somebody who’s a little more easily intimidated so that they will follow your directions exactly as you lay them out and not give you a hard time.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, each trick I have kind of the archetype of what I’m looking for and what would be best, and I’m gonna try and fit that puzzle piece with the piece that fits in the gap there. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, each trick I have kind of the archetype of what I’m looking for and what would be best, and I’m gonna try and fit that puzzle piece with the piece that fits in the gap there. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Josh says that this notion of reading people correctly, it can be pretty high stakes. These are dynamic encounters that go in very different directions depending on just what kind of energy you’re getting back.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Josh says that this notion of reading people correctly, it can be pretty high stakes. These are dynamic encounters that go in very different directions depending on just what kind of energy you’re getting back.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I was doing a show a few months ago, I thought I picked the perfect person. There was a woman, who was just giving great eye contact. She looked to be having a blast. She was even a little bit chatty, which I think in the end was what did me in. You know, she just seemed so confident and comfortable on stage, and it was a big crowd. It was more than 1,000 people. So, I thought she’s gonna be perfect. I noted it, and at the right moment, invited her on stage. What I didn’t realize until she came up was, she was loaded drunk. I mean, she was so drunk she could not follow basic instructions. She couldn’t stop talking. She was disruptive. And in the beginning, that’s funny, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I was doing a show a few months ago, I thought I picked the perfect person. There was a woman, who was just giving great eye contact. She looked to be having a blast. She was even a little bit chatty, which I think in the end was what did me in. You know, she just seemed so confident and comfortable on stage, and it was a big crowd. It was more than 1,000 people. So, I thought she’s gonna be perfect. I noted it, and at the right moment, invited her on stage. What I didn’t realize until she came up was, she was loaded drunk. I mean, she was so drunk she could not follow basic instructions. She couldn’t stop talking. She was disruptive. And in the beginning, that’s funny, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I’m not a comedy magician, so my purpose isn’t just to make people laugh. It’s to show them, I hope, things that are truly amazing, and if they laugh along the way- awesome. So okay immediately I have to reassess and go, we can make some comedy out of this, but the magic is gonna suffer if she can’t be quiet and follow directions and help us navigate to this amazing moment that’s coming up.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I’m not a comedy magician, so my purpose isn’t just to make people laugh. It’s to show them, I hope, things that are truly amazing, and if they laugh along the way- awesome. So okay immediately I have to reassess and go, we can make some comedy out of this, but the magic is gonna suffer if she can’t be quiet and follow directions and help us navigate to this amazing moment that’s coming up.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And she couldn’t. Right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And she couldn’t. Right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh!\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh!\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> She couldn’t. And so, you try and limp to the close and just think, “Next time I won’t make this mistake.” But in this case, I had to do the rarest thing of all, which is dismiss somebody. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> She couldn’t. And so, you try and limp to the close and just think, “Next time I won’t make this mistake.” But in this case, I had to do the rarest thing of all, which is dismiss somebody. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Oh, my goodness! \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Oh, my goodness! \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And you just say, “Do me a favor, grab your seat and I need you to come up now.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And you just say, “Do me a favor, grab your seat and I need you to come up now.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I actually had to do the switch mid-trick, which I very rarely, I can’t remember the last time, I picked someone so wrong that I had to recalibrate like that. But you know, this is what happens when you are on the road 300 days a year. You’re gonna have nightmare nights at the office. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I actually had to do the switch mid-trick, which I very rarely, I can’t remember the last time, I picked someone so wrong that I had to recalibrate like that. But you know, this is what happens when you are on the road 300 days a year. You’re gonna have nightmare nights at the office. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, when I hear this, I think, you know, the exception is what proves the rule. You know, the fact that this happens so rarely suggests that you are quite good at reading the room and reading people in ways that they I mean, yeah, I guess somebody who’s had a dozen cocktails probably knows that they’re going to embarrass themselves on stage. But for the most part, you’re picking up on tells that people might not even be aware that they have.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, when I hear this, I think, you know, the exception is what proves the rule. You know, the fact that this happens so rarely suggests that you are quite good at reading the room and reading people in ways that they I mean, yeah, I guess somebody who’s had a dozen cocktails probably knows that they’re going to embarrass themselves on stage. But for the most part, you’re picking up on tells that people might not even be aware that they have.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I guess I’m harping on this because when I think about machines that aren’t just reading our posture or looking for eye contact or are looking at, you know, beginning the data collection process the second we walk into the room. They learn about us for months, years and they’re able to gather a wide range of data about us.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I guess I’m harping on this because when I think about machines that aren’t just reading our posture or looking for eye contact or are looking at, you know, beginning the data collection process the second we walk into the room. They learn about us for months, years and they’re able to gather a wide range of data about us.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so, I start wondering, you know, what that starts to look like and I would ask you, are we more manipulable than we realize? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so, I start wondering, you know, what that starts to look like and I would ask you, are we more manipulable than we realize? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yes, emphatically yes. I think that there are so many insights that are so scary to a magician when you start applying it to real life. Like, there are so many- One of the basic tenets of magic is that if you tell an audience something, it is a tenth as effective if you can find a way to let that audience tell themselves, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yes, emphatically yes. I think that there are so many insights that are so scary to a magician when you start applying it to real life. Like, there are so many- One of the basic tenets of magic is that if you tell an audience something, it is a tenth as effective if you can find a way to let that audience tell themselves, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So let me give you an example. If I come out, this is like a classic amateur magician’s move. If I come out and I say, “Ladies and gentlemen, a regular deck of cards,” that is wrong for every possible reason. Because if I just said, “Do me a favor, give these a shuffle, and then I want you to take one out that you like and write your name on it.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So let me give you an example. If I come out, this is like a classic amateur magician’s move. If I come out and I say, “Ladies and gentlemen, a regular deck of cards,” that is wrong for every possible reason. Because if I just said, “Do me a favor, give these a shuffle, and then I want you to take one out that you like and write your name on it.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You will never in that interaction question the deck of cards because it’s a deck of cards. I’m handling it like you would handle a deck of cards if you handed it to a friend between rounds of dealing poker, right? Take the deck of cards, shuffle it up, take a card out. You would never think, “Are there 52 in there? Are they all the same shape? Is one shorter than another one? Is there more than one ace of spades in that deck?” You would never ask those questions because I’ve presented it in a casual manner, and I’ve given you a task. But the minute you say, “Ladies and gentlemen, a regulation pack of cards,” instantly you go, “Well, is it?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You will never in that interaction question the deck of cards because it’s a deck of cards. I’m handling it like you would handle a deck of cards if you handed it to a friend between rounds of dealing poker, right? Take the deck of cards, shuffle it up, take a card out. You would never think, “Are there 52 in there? Are they all the same shape? Is one shorter than another one? Is there more than one ace of spades in that deck?” You would never ask those questions because I’ve presented it in a casual manner, and I’ve given you a task. But the minute you say, “Ladies and gentlemen, a regulation pack of cards,” instantly you go, “Well, is it?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Well, I didn’t see it. Can I see it? Do you mind if I shuffle? Can I count those cards? Can I hold them up to a light? Can I shuffle and make sure they’re all the same thickness,” right? But if I give you the deck and I say, “Shuffle them up and take out any one that you like,” I’m letting you tell yourself it’s a regular deck because you put your fingers on it, you shuffle it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Well, I didn’t see it. Can I see it? Do you mind if I shuffle? Can I count those cards? Can I hold them up to a light? Can I shuffle and make sure they’re all the same thickness,” right? But if I give you the deck and I say, “Shuffle them up and take out any one that you like,” I’m letting you tell yourself it’s a regular deck because you put your fingers on it, you shuffle it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Now, you may be shuffling a deck that’s got all sorts of quirky, subtle things wrong with it, but you will be telling yourself it’s a normal deck because it feels right. When I look through to take out a card, nothing looked out of place. And now you’re telling yourself, and that’s a much more effective way to deceive somebody because you’re telling yourself.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Now, you may be shuffling a deck that’s got all sorts of quirky, subtle things wrong with it, but you will be telling yourself it’s a normal deck because it feels right. When I look through to take out a card, nothing looked out of place. And now you’re telling yourself, and that’s a much more effective way to deceive somebody because you’re telling yourself.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Josh says that the best magicians don’t just shape how people experience something in the moment. They can also change what we later remember about a moment. For instance, a magician might appear to drop a coin, and then somehow it vanishes. Cool trick. But the magician doesn’t stop there. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Josh says that the best magicians don’t just shape how people experience something in the moment. They can also change what we later remember about a moment. For instance, a magician might appear to drop a coin, and then somehow it vanishes. Cool trick. But the magician doesn’t stop there. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And if a minute later I say, “And you watched that coin as it fell from my hand and disintegrated in midair,” well, that’s a really great word, disintegrated, right? And it colors your memory. Maybe I refer to it two or three more times in the show, “And then it just disappeared, and it disintegrated, and when it got to my knee level, it just turned to dust.” And you can have people leaving swearing that they saw a coin vanish down here. And that’s the next frontier of magic is really manipulating memories.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And if a minute later I say, “And you watched that coin as it fell from my hand and disintegrated in midair,” well, that’s a really great word, disintegrated, right? And it colors your memory. Maybe I refer to it two or three more times in the show, “And then it just disappeared, and it disintegrated, and when it got to my knee level, it just turned to dust.” And you can have people leaving swearing that they saw a coin vanish down here. And that’s the next frontier of magic is really manipulating memories.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> If you were a less ethical person, do you think you could get people to do things against their will? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> If you were a less ethical person, do you think you could get people to do things against their will? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I mean… I think that the overarching lesson that I’ve, that I’m continually shocked about in magic in this regard is how easily people can be duped into believing things. I mean, it’s so crazy to me that, you know, I do a magic show that is meant to amaze and delight, but in no way is it meant to skirt the line of reality and make people actually believe. You know, there are performers like David Blaine, Uri Geller, and Oz Pearlman, who, you know, people see those performers and sort of go, “So wait, is that a trick or is that person really doing that?” And I don’t have that kind of approach, and still, not sometimes, very often people come up to me after shows and they’ll say really touching but misguided things like, “Hey, can you give me advice on this job I’m about to take? Cause I, you know, that trick you did where you were able to predict the future, I’m just wondering if you…” You know, you just wanna pull them aside and say, “This is pure entertainment. Like, I can’t give you life advice like that. I can’t actually see the future. This is fun.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I mean… I think that the overarching lesson that I’ve, that I’m continually shocked about in magic in this regard is how easily people can be duped into believing things. I mean, it’s so crazy to me that, you know, I do a magic show that is meant to amaze and delight, but in no way is it meant to skirt the line of reality and make people actually believe. You know, there are performers like David Blaine, Uri Geller, and Oz Pearlman, who, you know, people see those performers and sort of go, “So wait, is that a trick or is that person really doing that?” And I don’t have that kind of approach, and still, not sometimes, very often people come up to me after shows and they’ll say really touching but misguided things like, “Hey, can you give me advice on this job I’m about to take? Cause I, you know, that trick you did where you were able to predict the future, I’m just wondering if you…” You know, you just wanna pull them aside and say, “This is pure entertainment. Like, I can’t give you life advice like that. I can’t actually see the future. This is fun.” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“But you got my passcode off my phone. I’ve never told anybody that in my life.” “Yes, that’s a trick. I predicted your passcode.” Right. “Well, if you can tell my passcode, can you just tell me just a little advice? Should I take this job and move to Phoenix or not?” And it’s like, you know, you see that with certain people, they’re looking for an excuse to believe. They’re looking for it, and the more you say it’s not real, the more they want to believe it is real, and that’s scary stuff.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“But you got my passcode off my phone. I’ve never told anybody that in my life.” “Yes, that’s a trick. I predicted your passcode.” Right. “Well, if you can tell my passcode, can you just tell me just a little advice? Should I take this job and move to Phoenix or not?” And it’s like, you know, you see that with certain people, they’re looking for an excuse to believe. They’re looking for it, and the more you say it’s not real, the more they want to believe it is real, and that’s scary stuff.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> My takeaway so far in this conversation, buckle up. We better hope for a rapid learning curve as we adjust to life alongside artificial intelligences that feel real, that have been designed to seem real, but simply aren’t. My worry is that knowing we’re talking to a machine won’t ever be enough. Just like Teller’s baseball, even those rare occasions where we can see what’s happening under the hood won’t stop the illusion, because we want to believe the illusion. Because the illusion doesn’t just come from the machine, it comes from us. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> My takeaway so far in this conversation, buckle up. We better hope for a rapid learning curve as we adjust to life alongside artificial intelligences that feel real, that have been designed to seem real, but simply aren’t. My worry is that knowing we’re talking to a machine won’t ever be enough. Just like Teller’s baseball, even those rare occasions where we can see what’s happening under the hood won’t stop the illusion, because we want to believe the illusion. Because the illusion doesn’t just come from the machine, it comes from us. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>These are early innings. I’ll be very curious about how these chatbots change over time and the many ways they are welcomed or inserted into our lives. After the break, a pivot. I ask my guests, how is technology changing magic? And if you’re thinking, “Not that much,” you would be wrong.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>These are early innings. I’ll be very curious about how these chatbots change over time and the many ways they are welcomed or inserted into our lives. After the break, a pivot. I ask my guests, how is technology changing magic? And if you’re thinking, “Not that much,” you would be wrong.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>That’s after the break.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>That’s after the break.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>You might think that sleight of hand magic hasn’t changed much over the decades. A card trick, cups and balls, these are all pretty analog. Automation shouldn’t have too much of an impact. But the truth is, all performances are interactions between performer and audience. So even when technology doesn’t change the performer, it changes the audience.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>You might think that sleight of hand magic hasn’t changed much over the decades. A card trick, cups and balls, these are all pretty analog. Automation shouldn’t have too much of an impact. But the truth is, all performances are interactions between performer and audience. So even when technology doesn’t change the performer, it changes the audience.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Technology has always had an uneasy relationship to magic, and there are all sorts of tricks that we can’t do anymore for the simple reason that what even 20 years ago people would have gone, “That is the most amazing thing I could imagine you doing.” Now we would go, “Oh, we have an app for that.” I mean, there’s like a great trick where you predict a song that’s playing, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Technology has always had an uneasy relationship to magic, and there are all sorts of tricks that we can’t do anymore for the simple reason that what even 20 years ago people would have gone, “That is the most amazing thing I could imagine you doing.” Now we would go, “Oh, we have an app for that.” I mean, there’s like a great trick where you predict a song that’s playing, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And now you couldn’t do that trick cause people would go, “Yes, it’s an app. I had it 15 years ago. It’s called Shazam. You press this button and three seconds later it tells you the album and the song and the link to listen to it.” Like, all the tricks along that genre, they’re just out. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And now you couldn’t do that trick cause people would go, “Yes, it’s an app. I had it 15 years ago. It’s called Shazam. You press this button and three seconds later it tells you the album and the song and the link to listen to it.” Like, all the tricks along that genre, they’re just out. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> You told this story about doing one of your famous dollar bill tricks for somebody, and then they immediately took out their phone and they Googled, you know, how did Josh Jay do this dollar bill trick?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> You told this story about doing one of your famous dollar bill tricks for somebody, and then they immediately took out their phone and they Googled, you know, how did Josh Jay do this dollar bill trick?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And then they, like, just played the video in front of everybody, and you said it was not a great moment. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And then they, like, just played the video in front of everybody, and you said it was not a great moment. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Right. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Right. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> How do you deal with that? How do you deal with the fact that the answers so many of these tricks, the ability to watch it again and again and again from any angle that someone might have captured, are available to everybody at every moment?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> How do you deal with that? How do you deal with the fact that the answers so many of these tricks, the ability to watch it again and again and again from any angle that someone might have captured, are available to everybody at every moment?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Well, you’ve hit upon, you know, a really important and sort of topical crisis in our industry, which is that a lot of people are going on YouTube and doing tutorials of tricks that don’t belong to them and classic tricks and really good tricks. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Well, you’ve hit upon, you know, a really important and sort of topical crisis in our industry, which is that a lot of people are going on YouTube and doing tutorials of tricks that don’t belong to them and classic tricks and really good tricks. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> The particular dollar bill trick that got Josh is one of those classics that people can now look up on YouTube.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> The particular dollar bill trick that got Josh is one of those classics that people can now look up on YouTube.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Josh sees two strategies that magicians can use to get around this problem. The first being to avoid the classics altogether. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Josh sees two strategies that magicians can use to get around this problem. The first being to avoid the classics altogether. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> But if you’re doing a trick that thousands of other magicians are doing, you’re at great risk that that trick will be searchable and, you know, easily found online. Whereas if I’m doing something totally original, good luck searching for it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> But if you’re doing a trick that thousands of other magicians are doing, you’re at great risk that that trick will be searchable and, you know, easily found online. Whereas if I’m doing something totally original, good luck searching for it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You’re not gonna find that trick because I created that trick and it’s not published and it’s not anywhere to be found in a searchable way. So that’s one way. Another way is magicians have to get really clever at disguising what it looks like. They have to mesh together several methods and several tricks so that somebody looks at it and goes, “You know, I don’t know. He borrowed my house key, and then he bent it, and then it vanished- … and it appeared in a lock across the room.” You know, that’s not a searchable term, whereas changing a $1 bill into $100 bill is easily searchable. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You’re not gonna find that trick because I created that trick and it’s not published and it’s not anywhere to be found in a searchable way. So that’s one way. Another way is magicians have to get really clever at disguising what it looks like. They have to mesh together several methods and several tricks so that somebody looks at it and goes, “You know, I don’t know. He borrowed my house key, and then he bent it, and then it vanished- … and it appeared in a lock across the room.” You know, that’s not a searchable term, whereas changing a $1 bill into $100 bill is easily searchable. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And yeah, so at the same time as it is making a lot of parts of your life as a magician more difficult, it also might be raising the rewards to true novelty and creativity and innovation.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And yeah, so at the same time as it is making a lot of parts of your life as a magician more difficult, it also might be raising the rewards to true novelty and creativity and innovation.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> That’s how I’m choosing to look at it, and maybe I’m, like, choosing to look at it with rose-tinted glasses because I like that process. But, you know, in my head, the healthiest magic community in the world is one in which everybody’s doing their own material. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> That’s how I’m choosing to look at it, and maybe I’m, like, choosing to look at it with rose-tinted glasses because I like that process. But, you know, in my head, the healthiest magic community in the world is one in which everybody’s doing their own material. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, we don’t give much attention to bands that only play covers. They play in bars for 30 people. If you write your own music and you become successful at that, you can tour arenas and have a career that is way more outsized than a cover band ever could. We don’t reward comedians who just repeat the jokes of, you know, a smorgasbord of all their favorite comedians. We reward people who come up with original monologues, and we can’t wait to hear the latest Chappelle or Nate Bargatze or Seinfeld hour because we know it’s gonna be their point of view. So, my ultimate ideal in magic, it would be, you know, all magicians doing their own stuff. Now, magic has developed at a much slower pace than comedy and even songwriting.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, we don’t give much attention to bands that only play covers. They play in bars for 30 people. If you write your own music and you become successful at that, you can tour arenas and have a career that is way more outsized than a cover band ever could. We don’t reward comedians who just repeat the jokes of, you know, a smorgasbord of all their favorite comedians. We reward people who come up with original monologues, and we can’t wait to hear the latest Chappelle or Nate Bargatze or Seinfeld hour because we know it’s gonna be their point of view. So, my ultimate ideal in magic, it would be, you know, all magicians doing their own stuff. Now, magic has developed at a much slower pace than comedy and even songwriting.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I mean, it takes years to perfect a really great magic trick. So that’s a high bar indeed, but my hope is that this negative will end up being a positive and that magicians will take a cue from this and start really obscuring what they’re doing in such a way that it’s either mostly original or completely original.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, technology is changing magic, but Josh says it won’t be taking over anytime soon. For instance, most magicians who choose to use AI are using it to help them tweak their script a bit, not to design tricks wholesale. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> AI can help you find a moment in history that you would have never turned up that’s the perfect way to theatrically get into a trick on coincidence or a trick on transformation, and now you’ve given it this great context about this amazing thing that happened in Victorian England. And, you know, that’s, I think, a way that AI is really gonna help performers because like so many things, we don’t want AI to dehumanize magic. Magic will be one of the great things left when AI is fully integrated into everything else that people will go to for a truly human experience. I mean, what besides eating and watching movies will be left that isn’t entirely, you know, affected by AI?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> AI can help you find a moment in history that you would have never turned up that’s the perfect way to theatrically get into a trick on coincidence or a trick on transformation, and now you’ve given it this great context about this amazing thing that happened in Victorian England. And, you know, that’s, I think, a way that AI is really gonna help performers because like so many things, we don’t want AI to dehumanize magic. Magic will be one of the great things left when AI is fully integrated into everything else that people will go to for a truly human experience. I mean, what besides eating and watching movies will be left that isn’t entirely, you know, affected by AI?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Let’s talk about this. You describe the period from the 1870s to the 1930s as the “Golden Age of Magic”. Yeah. Could we, you know, see a resurgence to a new Golden Age of Magic? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Let’s talk about this. You describe the period from the 1870s to the 1930s as the “Golden Age of Magic”. Yeah. Could we, you know, see a resurgence to a new Golden Age of Magic? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of evidence to say that in a sense we are in another golden age. I mean, take some metrics. Because of TikTok and Instagram and just magic being online generally, and add to that the fact that America’s Got Talent and Fool Us are putting magic in front of millions of people in their homes that didn’t used to be there- More people are watching magic than have ever watched it in history.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of evidence to say that in a sense we are in another golden age. I mean, take some metrics. Because of TikTok and Instagram and just magic being online generally, and add to that the fact that America’s Got Talent and Fool Us are putting magic in front of millions of people in their homes that didn’t used to be there- More people are watching magic than have ever watched it in history.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Fact. Not, and it’s not close. It’s not like marginally more. Like, exponentially more people are watching magic than ever have. Another objective fact is that there are now more venues to perform magic than there have ever been at any point in my life or in the previous 50 years. So, I also have emprivated data because I co-own, a magic shop called Vanishing Inc., where we sell magic and we publish books, and I can tell you that we are selling to a larger group of people than magic shops used to sell to. They used to be quite localized, and thanks to the internet, we can now sell all over the world. And the industry itself is growing. You can just feel that there are more people interested in magic every day and not less. So, in those regards, anecdotally, I would say to you, we might be in a golden age and not know it. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Fact. Not, and it’s not close. It’s not like marginally more. Like, exponentially more people are watching magic than ever have. Another objective fact is that there are now more venues to perform magic than there have ever been at any point in my life or in the previous 50 years. So, I also have emprivated data because I co-own, a magic shop called Vanishing Inc., where we sell magic and we publish books, and I can tell you that we are selling to a larger group of people than magic shops used to sell to. They used to be quite localized, and thanks to the internet, we can now sell all over the world. And the industry itself is growing. You can just feel that there are more people interested in magic every day and not less. So, in those regards, anecdotally, I would say to you, we might be in a golden age and not know it. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> You describe magic as being a product of its time, and you give this great example of the famous trick of sawing a woman in half being the perfect trick when it emerged after World War I. All of a sudden it was hitting an audience that was maybe a little bit more desensitized to violence, more open to women, playing different roles in society, including one where presumably they get chopped in half. And I wanna ask you, what would be the perfect trick for 2026? \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Oh. Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, that’s a really tough question. I mean, I would say to zoom out for a second and buy myself a minute to think, I would say that the greatest magic trick, and not just in 2026, ever, is always the trick that is perfect for the situation you’re in at that moment, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Oh. Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, that’s a really tough question. I mean, I would say to zoom out for a second and buy myself a minute to think, I would say that the greatest magic trick, and not just in 2026, ever, is always the trick that is perfect for the situation you’re in at that moment, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I talk in the book, you might remember, about the ham sandwich theory, and for those readers who haven’t read my book, like, this is such a great illustration of what magic can be at its ultimate fullest expression, which is that if I reach up behind your ear right now, Jessica, and pull out a ham sandwich from nowhere, and you don’t know how it’s done, you’re gonna look at me and go, “That was random,” because it is.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I talk in the book, you might remember, about the ham sandwich theory, and for those readers who haven’t read my book, like, this is such a great illustration of what magic can be at its ultimate fullest expression, which is that if I reach up behind your ear right now, Jessica, and pull out a ham sandwich from nowhere, and you don’t know how it’s done, you’re gonna look at me and go, “That was random,” because it is.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s totally random. It’s not interesting. It’s not logical. I just pulled a ham sandwich out. It’s arbitrary. But if instead you said to me, “Gosh, Josh, I am starving. I’m just… I’m really in the mood for a ham sandwich. Is that weird to say?” And I then went, “Oh, yeah?” And now I pull a ham sandwich out of your ear- \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It’s totally random. It’s not interesting. It’s not logical. I just pulled a ham sandwich out. It’s arbitrary. But if instead you said to me, “Gosh, Josh, I am starving. I’m just… I’m really in the mood for a ham sandwich. Is that weird to say?” And I then went, “Oh, yeah?” And now I pull a ham sandwich out of your ear- \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I have fulfilled a need. I have responded to a need you created, and now that magic is everything to you. It’s personal. It felt directly tailored to something you had. It fulfilled a need, hunger that you were feeling at that moment. So, whatever the answer is to your question, it would have to be something that’s specific to an audience in 2026.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I have fulfilled a need. I have responded to a need you created, and now that magic is everything to you. It’s personal. It felt directly tailored to something you had. It fulfilled a need, hunger that you were feeling at that moment. So, whatever the answer is to your question, it would have to be something that’s specific to an audience in 2026.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I want to push Josh here. What does the perfect trick look like in 2026 with technology constantly shifting the boundaries between that’s awesome and yeah, that’s an app? What happens to an art form so cognizant of the limits of human cognition when everyone carries around a device that seems to know everything and never forget?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I want to push Josh here. What does the perfect trick look like in 2026 with technology constantly shifting the boundaries between that’s awesome and yeah, that’s an app? What happens to an art form so cognizant of the limits of human cognition when everyone carries around a device that seems to know everything and never forget?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Well, maybe it calls attention to that very device. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I always see things through the lens of what I’m working on, and I’m working on a trick where we turn off all the lights in the theater, which is instantly and immediately fascinating to me because it gets to be this change of scenery, right? And I have everybody take out their cell phones and put their light on. So, you get that little concert vibe going where they’re moving their light around, and it looks like twinkling stars in this huge theater, right? And all these people are here. And I’m working on a trick where they are whittled down. So, through a series of choices that the audience makes, I would say, “Okay, if you were born in September, stay standing with your light on. Everybody else sit down, turn your phone off.” And it goes from 1,000 lights to… 30 lights. And you whittle them down all the way until you get one person with a light, and then you predict that person’s phone number, which is the thing that they’re holding- the whole time, and you’re right there, and how could you have known it would be them, and the choices that were made.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I always see things through the lens of what I’m working on, and I’m working on a trick where we turn off all the lights in the theater, which is instantly and immediately fascinating to me because it gets to be this change of scenery, right? And I have everybody take out their cell phones and put their light on. So, you get that little concert vibe going where they’re moving their light around, and it looks like twinkling stars in this huge theater, right? And all these people are here. And I’m working on a trick where they are whittled down. So, through a series of choices that the audience makes, I would say, “Okay, if you were born in September, stay standing with your light on. Everybody else sit down, turn your phone off.” And it goes from 1,000 lights to… 30 lights. And you whittle them down all the way until you get one person with a light, and then you predict that person’s phone number, which is the thing that they’re holding- the whole time, and you’re right there, and how could you have known it would be them, and the choices that were made.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And then the very light they’re holding has the phone number, and that’s what I’m working on, and that’s what I’ll call the ultimate trick in 2026 cause I haven’t fully figured out how I’m doing it yet. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And then the very light they’re holding has the phone number, and that’s what I’m working on, and that’s what I’ll call the ultimate trick in 2026 cause I haven’t fully figured out how I’m doing it yet. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh my gosh. Well, I just love hearing you talk about this knowing that you don’t even fully know how you’re going to do it yet.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh my gosh. Well, I just love hearing you talk about this knowing that you don’t even fully know how you’re going to do it yet.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Like, it seems like as a creator, you think about how do I want the audience to feel, what should they be paying attention to, what should they be thinking about, and then eventually you get back to the mechanism of how you pull this all off. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yes. It’s exactly that. And that was a really important shift for me is not to become obsessed with method, not to get bogged down by well, that would be great, but I don’t know how to do it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yes. It’s exactly that. And that was a really important shift for me is not to become obsessed with method, not to get bogged down by well, that would be great, but I don’t know how to do it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think that all my best things have come out of me sort of going I’m not gonna think about how this could be done. I just wanna play out in my mind what it would look like if I could do it. And then I need to figure out a way to do it. And, you know, you fall on your face a lot, and you realize, like, well, I can’t do that, but I could do this.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And you might fall short of the ideal, but at least you’re thinking… in the minds of the audience, and I think that’s a really good place to start. You know, empathy is a really important tool for a magician, and I imagine it’s probably a huge focus of everybody who’s helping to design AI is to think empathically, to think like your audience.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, the first thing you have to do as a magician is get out of your own head and to try to get into the head of the people you’re performing for. What do they wanna see? What would they think if you did this? How would they react if you did this?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Empathy as one of the ultimate superpowers? Yeah, I buy that. Human creators of all stripes have long recognized its power. Magicians like Joshua Jay rely on empathy to create experiences that delight, and stun, and fill a need. Engineers rely on empathy to imagine how users will engage with confusing or intimidating tools.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Empathy as one of the ultimate superpowers? Yeah, I buy that. Human creators of all stripes have long recognized its power. Magicians like Joshua Jay rely on empathy to create experiences that delight, and stun, and fill a need. Engineers rely on empathy to imagine how users will engage with confusing or intimidating tools.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What’s different is that now we have machines that empathize, too, or at least convincingly perform empathy. Which brings us right back to where we started, me going to my chatbot three days later to report back on how that email landed, the email we carefully crafted together. As that line between what we perceive to be reality versus magic continues to blur before our eyes, I’m glad to have the occasional magician as a tour guide.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love. Life, Automated is a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. We’re distributed by KQED. Our show was produced by Jesse Dukes. Music by Stephen Jackson. Recording help from Will Feeney, George Christensen, and Leila Mohammed. Administrative support, recording, and wise counsel from Stacia Sliger.\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#transcript\">View Full Episode Transcript\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>When people go to a magic show, they expect to be fooled. That’s part of the fun. And magician \u003ca href=\"https://www.joshuajay.com/\">Joshua Jay\u003c/a> says much of the magician’s work is helping people fool themselves. Our brains are hardwired to fill in gaps, predict outcomes, and take cognitive shortcuts to process the overwhelming amount of information around us. When interacting with AI chatbots, we may similarly fool ourselves into believing we’re interacting with a human. But unlike at a magic show, it’s not always clear when the trick is over. Plus: how AI is changing magic.\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"Transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Welcome to Life Automated, the show where we explore what it means to live, work, and make decisions in a rapidly automating world. I’m Jess Love. I’ve been known, in moments of excitement or confusion or overwhelm, to turn to a chatbot, just to share, “Hey, this is what I’m thinking I’ll do next. Here’s how I want to approach this situation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’ll even occasionally return to provide an update. Maybe this isn’t ideal. I know how sycophantic chatbots can be, telling me how thoughtful and clever my plans are unless I sternly direct them to act like dream-crushing jerks. But I can’t deny that the experience is pleasant. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like if your diary could write back. And yes, on some level, I know this is a machine trained to keep me engaging with it, and yet don’t I still feel a little validated when that response comes back? A little heard? There is no precedent for this. In every other moment in history, feeling like you’re talking back and forth with a real person has meant you’re connecting with a real person, someone who understands you, someone offering you their finite attention.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And we’ve evolved to take pleasure in these interactions, to seek them out, because that’s kept our species connected and alive. But with chatbots, this ancient link between the appearance of a mind and an actual mind no longer holds, and it’s really hard to know what to make of that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There are people who obsess over this gap between what we intellectually know to be true and what we experience as real. Only they’re not AI researchers — they’re magicians. Today’s conversation is with one of the finest. Joshua Jay has performed his sleight-of-hand magic all around the world, including on major talk shows and for US presidents, and he’s a total magic nerd, the author of several books about magic, including “How Magicians Think.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And he’s not gonna teach us about algorithms. Instead, he’ll teach us to see ourselves the way he sees us, as people whose attention can be commanded and redirected, whose memories can be shifted, and as active participants in our own deception. We also talk about the surprising ways that technology is changing magic.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>From Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, this is Life Automated, distributed by KQED. Here’s my conversation with Joshua Jay. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke famously said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” And I think for a lot of people, sitting down in front of a chatbot for the first time, that was kind of the experience.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Magic. There was this thing, this machine doing something that we didn’t think that machines could do. It was interacting with us in real time, in our own language, in meaningful ways. So, I wanted to ask you, as an actual magician, somebody who thinks about how emotions like awe and surprise are created, what was your first experience using a chatbot like, and did it in any way feel like a magic trick?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. It’s such a great question, and it’s such a relevant question for me as a magician because we are deliverers of certain emotion, which is what you’re talking about, this awe, this like I don’t even know how this is happening, but it’s happening anyway. You know, Teller said so beautifully that magic is the difference between what you see and what you know.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, you’re having a conversation with this entity and you know it’s not a person, and yet you’re having this conversation. So, the crisis is always we are deliverers of this feeling of astonishment, and yet by virtue of the fact that we know how all of this is done, we often don’t get that sense of awe, and we don’t get amazed very often.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, the first time that I engaged with AI and was… You know, that first time you take the plunge and you’re just asking, you’re having a conversation with a thing, I was truly astonished. And I felt like, wow, this is probably what it feels like to watch a magic show and just be amazed at everything. And so yeah, I absolutely was totally and utterly amazed and felt like, as we call you guys, “laypeople”, I felt like a layperson. I felt like a muggle. And, it was really fantastic. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> You just brought up, Teller, of course, of the very famous duo ‘Penn & Teller’, and they have this trick. It’s kind of a classic trick where they’re moving balls in cups as magicians do. We call you guys- magicians, us muggles.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Only they use clear cups, so you can actually see what’s happening. And that really kind of reminds me of what you were just talking about, this idea of knowing without knowing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. You know, I find myself thinking so often when I’m performing, like, you know, you do something, and hopefully somebody really likes it and they scream in all the right places.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But what I’m thinking most of the time is, “Oh, you guys aren’t even seeing the coolest part. If you could see how this works, you would be even more flipped out.” Because sometimes you’re fooled by something that’s so much simpler than you could expect. And very often, and this is such a beautiful topic that it’s its own deep dive- The magician doesn’t fool you; you fool yourself.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And there is a difference. You know, some things it is the magician. It’s sleight-of-hand. It’s a gizmo you couldn’t possibly anticipate, a technology you’re not aware of. But often, you fool yourself with assumptions you make and the psychology that’s being used on you. So, it is this really interesting thing that you bring up where as great as magic feels to a muggle, to a layperson, you don’t even see the best part often.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And, you know, you bring up this classic Penn and Teller piece, and they have many pieces like this, where they said, “We’re gonna do cups and balls,” but then in the middle of the trick, after they do a classic cups and balls with opaque cups and normal-sized balls, they do it again, but they do it with clear cups.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>As it goes with breaking a few rules of magic. Now, the first rule of magic is you never do the same trick twice. So, we’re good. Second rule of magic is you never tell an audience how a trick is being done. So, we’re gonna tell you exactly how the trick is being done. The third rule of magic is you never let the audience see your secret preparation.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And even though if you were to zoom in on the right part, you would see how it works, it’s really a lesson in misdirection because you’re looking at Teller as he’s throwing a ball to the audience, and you’re not watching Penn as he’s placing the cups back down. And in this beautiful chaos of choreography, the lesson, the sort of aesthetic beauty of it, is you’re seeing how it’s done, but you really aren’t seeing how it’s done at all.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This trick is the ultimate flex. I watched it on YouTube after my conversation with Joshua Jay multiple times.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Eventually, I did see the key move, Teller placing the right ball exactly where it needed to be to make the trick work, in full view of the audience. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Place it on our hand and show it. Take a third and final ball, pretend to place it in our hand. Pretend to show the cup. We place it in the cup. Then secretly reveal it. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> How did I miss it so many times? How did I see without seeing? It really drove home how easily we can be led to believe something false, even when the truth is right in front of us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>…The finish. It’s an American baseball right there. That’s the Penn and Teller Cups and Balls. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Think about this in terms of interacting with a chatbot. It’s like we know that they are machines. We know that we are actively being fooled in some way, and yet we might still feel understood, affirmed, cared for. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> You know, the implicit agreement when you see a magic show is you’re saying when you sit down to watch, I know you’re going to try to fool me and I want to be fooled, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, you know that there is a deception at hand. You know that there’s going to be things that hopefully if they do their job, the magician does that you will not understand how it works. And I think that the uncomfortability comes in real life in that sometimes there’s not that implicit handshake going on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Look, in a magic show, you’re fooled. There’s no way around it. People don’t like that word. Some people do like that word, but call it whatever you like. We can’t soften it. You’re going to be fooled. You’re going to see something you don’t understand and you’re not supposed to understand it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But that’s what’s beautiful about it is that’s out in the open. That is made explicit. Whereas with some aspects of AI, with some aspects of technology in general, we don’t know where the human element ends and where the AI begins. And that can be really unsettling for people because they may not feel like, hey, look, when I started this conversation, I didn’t know I wasn’t talking to a human, you know.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Of course, none of this “being fooled” is by accident. Chatbots are generally designed to mimic humans. They refer to themselves in the first person as I or me. They act interested in what we’re saying, asking questions to nudge the conversation forward, and they learn about us, first through extensive training on human language and behavior, and then increasingly through interactions with us, adapting to our personal preferences and detecting our mood shifts in real time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This learning to read human beings, that’s something magicians do too. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I say that you’re always watching the magician and that’s how you think of a magic show, but we’re watching you too. And that little shift in perspective is something I don’t think most people think about. You know, during my opening trick, which has been the same for years now, and I can do it, you know, sort of on autopilot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I don’t have to think very deeply. It helps me establish my rhythm. But in my head, what I’m doing is I am plotting the rest of the show based on the hand I’m dealt. Ooh, these people in the back left have a lot of sight line issues. I’m gonna really need to connect with them to make sure they can see and do that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Or, you know all the waiters are opening this kitchen door in the back of the theater that’s making it really noisy, and so these people are gonna need to be babysat a little more to make sure they’re super engaged. In magic what I’m looking for on stage is somebody who is not going to be afraid.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, the first thing I look for before anything else is I’m looking for somebody who is exuding confidence. And a big indicator of confidence is eye contact. You know, it’s so crazy when I say like, “I need someone to help with this next thing,” there are just so many people in an audience who immediately think if they don’t look at me, then somehow, I won’t pick them. And it’s really pronounced when you’re like, as a magician, looking in the audience as you walk through an aisle, left and right. You just see people just totally thinking that they won’t be seen if they’re not… And I’m like, “I can see you even though you’re not looking at me.” But really, you’re looking for somebody who’s got great eye contact and who looks like they’re enjoying the show. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And there’s usually like a little test. So, if I can narrow it down to two or three people who I think, “Oh, this person would be just great on stage,” I might say- “Welcome to the show.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I won’t invite them. I might say, “Welcome to the show, sir. Where are you from?” “I’m from Canton, Ohio.” “Okay. And, what’s this? Why are you, traveling with a suitcase to a magic show?” You know. And if they’re stiff, if they’re giving one-word answers, if they’re sort of like a deer in headlights, maybe I can say, “Well, thanks for coming.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I appreciate you being here. And what about you? What’s your story? Who are you here with?” Right? And you’re just looking for somebody to be like, “Well, I wasn’t even supposed to be here tonight, but my friend Janie, she dragged me to the show and now I’m so glad I came.” Well, there’s a chatty person. That sounds fun. So, I might use that person. And similarly, if I need somebody who is a little bit more submissive in the sense that they’re gonna follow my directions and not give me a hard time-… if I say, “Hold out both hands like this. Put one coin in this hand, one coin…” I don’t want that person switching hands with the coins or you know, when I turn around- trying to throw me off. So, in that case, you might do just the opposite. You might choose somebody who is a little afraid. Sounds a little dark, but maybe you do want somebody who’s a little more easily intimidated so that they will follow your directions exactly as you lay them out and not give you a hard time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, each trick I have kind of the archetype of what I’m looking for and what would be best, and I’m gonna try and fit that puzzle piece with the piece that fits in the gap there. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Josh says that this notion of reading people correctly, it can be pretty high stakes. These are dynamic encounters that go in very different directions depending on just what kind of energy you’re getting back.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I was doing a show a few months ago, I thought I picked the perfect person. There was a woman, who was just giving great eye contact. She looked to be having a blast. She was even a little bit chatty, which I think in the end was what did me in. You know, she just seemed so confident and comfortable on stage, and it was a big crowd. It was more than 1,000 people. So, I thought she’s gonna be perfect. I noted it, and at the right moment, invited her on stage. What I didn’t realize until she came up was, she was loaded drunk. I mean, she was so drunk she could not follow basic instructions. She couldn’t stop talking. She was disruptive. And in the beginning, that’s funny, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I’m not a comedy magician, so my purpose isn’t just to make people laugh. It’s to show them, I hope, things that are truly amazing, and if they laugh along the way- awesome. So okay immediately I have to reassess and go, we can make some comedy out of this, but the magic is gonna suffer if she can’t be quiet and follow directions and help us navigate to this amazing moment that’s coming up.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And she couldn’t. Right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> She couldn’t. And so, you try and limp to the close and just think, “Next time I won’t make this mistake.” But in this case, I had to do the rarest thing of all, which is dismiss somebody. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Oh, my goodness! \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And you just say, “Do me a favor, grab your seat and I need you to come up now.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I actually had to do the switch mid-trick, which I very rarely, I can’t remember the last time, I picked someone so wrong that I had to recalibrate like that. But you know, this is what happens when you are on the road 300 days a year. You’re gonna have nightmare nights at the office. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, when I hear this, I think, you know, the exception is what proves the rule. You know, the fact that this happens so rarely suggests that you are quite good at reading the room and reading people in ways that they I mean, yeah, I guess somebody who’s had a dozen cocktails probably knows that they’re going to embarrass themselves on stage. But for the most part, you’re picking up on tells that people might not even be aware that they have.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I guess I’m harping on this because when I think about machines that aren’t just reading our posture or looking for eye contact or are looking at, you know, beginning the data collection process the second we walk into the room. They learn about us for months, years and they’re able to gather a wide range of data about us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, I start wondering, you know, what that starts to look like and I would ask you, are we more manipulable than we realize? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yes, emphatically yes. I think that there are so many insights that are so scary to a magician when you start applying it to real life. Like, there are so many- One of the basic tenets of magic is that if you tell an audience something, it is a tenth as effective if you can find a way to let that audience tell themselves, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So let me give you an example. If I come out, this is like a classic amateur magician’s move. If I come out and I say, “Ladies and gentlemen, a regular deck of cards,” that is wrong for every possible reason. Because if I just said, “Do me a favor, give these a shuffle, and then I want you to take one out that you like and write your name on it.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You will never in that interaction question the deck of cards because it’s a deck of cards. I’m handling it like you would handle a deck of cards if you handed it to a friend between rounds of dealing poker, right? Take the deck of cards, shuffle it up, take a card out. You would never think, “Are there 52 in there? Are they all the same shape? Is one shorter than another one? Is there more than one ace of spades in that deck?” You would never ask those questions because I’ve presented it in a casual manner, and I’ve given you a task. But the minute you say, “Ladies and gentlemen, a regulation pack of cards,” instantly you go, “Well, is it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Well, I didn’t see it. Can I see it? Do you mind if I shuffle? Can I count those cards? Can I hold them up to a light? Can I shuffle and make sure they’re all the same thickness,” right? But if I give you the deck and I say, “Shuffle them up and take out any one that you like,” I’m letting you tell yourself it’s a regular deck because you put your fingers on it, you shuffle it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Now, you may be shuffling a deck that’s got all sorts of quirky, subtle things wrong with it, but you will be telling yourself it’s a normal deck because it feels right. When I look through to take out a card, nothing looked out of place. And now you’re telling yourself, and that’s a much more effective way to deceive somebody because you’re telling yourself.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Josh says that the best magicians don’t just shape how people experience something in the moment. They can also change what we later remember about a moment. For instance, a magician might appear to drop a coin, and then somehow it vanishes. Cool trick. But the magician doesn’t stop there. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And if a minute later I say, “And you watched that coin as it fell from my hand and disintegrated in midair,” well, that’s a really great word, disintegrated, right? And it colors your memory. Maybe I refer to it two or three more times in the show, “And then it just disappeared, and it disintegrated, and when it got to my knee level, it just turned to dust.” And you can have people leaving swearing that they saw a coin vanish down here. And that’s the next frontier of magic is really manipulating memories.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> If you were a less ethical person, do you think you could get people to do things against their will? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I mean… I think that the overarching lesson that I’ve, that I’m continually shocked about in magic in this regard is how easily people can be duped into believing things. I mean, it’s so crazy to me that, you know, I do a magic show that is meant to amaze and delight, but in no way is it meant to skirt the line of reality and make people actually believe. You know, there are performers like David Blaine, Uri Geller, and Oz Pearlman, who, you know, people see those performers and sort of go, “So wait, is that a trick or is that person really doing that?” And I don’t have that kind of approach, and still, not sometimes, very often people come up to me after shows and they’ll say really touching but misguided things like, “Hey, can you give me advice on this job I’m about to take? Cause I, you know, that trick you did where you were able to predict the future, I’m just wondering if you…” You know, you just wanna pull them aside and say, “This is pure entertainment. Like, I can’t give you life advice like that. I can’t actually see the future. This is fun.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“But you got my passcode off my phone. I’ve never told anybody that in my life.” “Yes, that’s a trick. I predicted your passcode.” Right. “Well, if you can tell my passcode, can you just tell me just a little advice? Should I take this job and move to Phoenix or not?” And it’s like, you know, you see that with certain people, they’re looking for an excuse to believe. They’re looking for it, and the more you say it’s not real, the more they want to believe it is real, and that’s scary stuff.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> My takeaway so far in this conversation, buckle up. We better hope for a rapid learning curve as we adjust to life alongside artificial intelligences that feel real, that have been designed to seem real, but simply aren’t. My worry is that knowing we’re talking to a machine won’t ever be enough. Just like Teller’s baseball, even those rare occasions where we can see what’s happening under the hood won’t stop the illusion, because we want to believe the illusion. Because the illusion doesn’t just come from the machine, it comes from us. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>These are early innings. I’ll be very curious about how these chatbots change over time and the many ways they are welcomed or inserted into our lives. After the break, a pivot. I ask my guests, how is technology changing magic? And if you’re thinking, “Not that much,” you would be wrong.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s after the break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>You might think that sleight of hand magic hasn’t changed much over the decades. A card trick, cups and balls, these are all pretty analog. Automation shouldn’t have too much of an impact. But the truth is, all performances are interactions between performer and audience. So even when technology doesn’t change the performer, it changes the audience.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Technology has always had an uneasy relationship to magic, and there are all sorts of tricks that we can’t do anymore for the simple reason that what even 20 years ago people would have gone, “That is the most amazing thing I could imagine you doing.” Now we would go, “Oh, we have an app for that.” I mean, there’s like a great trick where you predict a song that’s playing, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And now you couldn’t do that trick cause people would go, “Yes, it’s an app. I had it 15 years ago. It’s called Shazam. You press this button and three seconds later it tells you the album and the song and the link to listen to it.” Like, all the tricks along that genre, they’re just out. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> You told this story about doing one of your famous dollar bill tricks for somebody, and then they immediately took out their phone and they Googled, you know, how did Josh Jay do this dollar bill trick?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then they, like, just played the video in front of everybody, and you said it was not a great moment. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Right. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> How do you deal with that? How do you deal with the fact that the answers so many of these tricks, the ability to watch it again and again and again from any angle that someone might have captured, are available to everybody at every moment?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Well, you’ve hit upon, you know, a really important and sort of topical crisis in our industry, which is that a lot of people are going on YouTube and doing tutorials of tricks that don’t belong to them and classic tricks and really good tricks. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> The particular dollar bill trick that got Josh is one of those classics that people can now look up on YouTube.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Josh sees two strategies that magicians can use to get around this problem. The first being to avoid the classics altogether. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> But if you’re doing a trick that thousands of other magicians are doing, you’re at great risk that that trick will be searchable and, you know, easily found online. Whereas if I’m doing something totally original, good luck searching for it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You’re not gonna find that trick because I created that trick and it’s not published and it’s not anywhere to be found in a searchable way. So that’s one way. Another way is magicians have to get really clever at disguising what it looks like. They have to mesh together several methods and several tricks so that somebody looks at it and goes, “You know, I don’t know. He borrowed my house key, and then he bent it, and then it vanished- … and it appeared in a lock across the room.” You know, that’s not a searchable term, whereas changing a $1 bill into $100 bill is easily searchable. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And yeah, so at the same time as it is making a lot of parts of your life as a magician more difficult, it also might be raising the rewards to true novelty and creativity and innovation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> That’s how I’m choosing to look at it, and maybe I’m, like, choosing to look at it with rose-tinted glasses because I like that process. But, you know, in my head, the healthiest magic community in the world is one in which everybody’s doing their own material. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, we don’t give much attention to bands that only play covers. They play in bars for 30 people. If you write your own music and you become successful at that, you can tour arenas and have a career that is way more outsized than a cover band ever could. We don’t reward comedians who just repeat the jokes of, you know, a smorgasbord of all their favorite comedians. We reward people who come up with original monologues, and we can’t wait to hear the latest Chappelle or Nate Bargatze or Seinfeld hour because we know it’s gonna be their point of view. So, my ultimate ideal in magic, it would be, you know, all magicians doing their own stuff. Now, magic has developed at a much slower pace than comedy and even songwriting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I mean, it takes years to perfect a really great magic trick. So that’s a high bar indeed, but my hope is that this negative will end up being a positive and that magicians will take a cue from this and start really obscuring what they’re doing in such a way that it’s either mostly original or completely original.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, technology is changing magic, but Josh says it won’t be taking over anytime soon. For instance, most magicians who choose to use AI are using it to help them tweak their script a bit, not to design tricks wholesale. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> AI can help you find a moment in history that you would have never turned up that’s the perfect way to theatrically get into a trick on coincidence or a trick on transformation, and now you’ve given it this great context about this amazing thing that happened in Victorian England. And, you know, that’s, I think, a way that AI is really gonna help performers because like so many things, we don’t want AI to dehumanize magic. Magic will be one of the great things left when AI is fully integrated into everything else that people will go to for a truly human experience. I mean, what besides eating and watching movies will be left that isn’t entirely, you know, affected by AI?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Let’s talk about this. You describe the period from the 1870s to the 1930s as the “Golden Age of Magic”. Yeah. Could we, you know, see a resurgence to a new Golden Age of Magic? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of evidence to say that in a sense we are in another golden age. I mean, take some metrics. Because of TikTok and Instagram and just magic being online generally, and add to that the fact that America’s Got Talent and Fool Us are putting magic in front of millions of people in their homes that didn’t used to be there- More people are watching magic than have ever watched it in history.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Fact. Not, and it’s not close. It’s not like marginally more. Like, exponentially more people are watching magic than ever have. Another objective fact is that there are now more venues to perform magic than there have ever been at any point in my life or in the previous 50 years. So, I also have emprivated data because I co-own, a magic shop called Vanishing Inc., where we sell magic and we publish books, and I can tell you that we are selling to a larger group of people than magic shops used to sell to. They used to be quite localized, and thanks to the internet, we can now sell all over the world. And the industry itself is growing. You can just feel that there are more people interested in magic every day and not less. So, in those regards, anecdotally, I would say to you, we might be in a golden age and not know it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> You describe magic as being a product of its time, and you give this great example of the famous trick of sawing a woman in half being the perfect trick when it emerged after World War I. All of a sudden it was hitting an audience that was maybe a little bit more desensitized to violence, more open to women, playing different roles in society, including one where presumably they get chopped in half. And I wanna ask you, what would be the perfect trick for 2026? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Oh. Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, that’s a really tough question. I mean, I would say to zoom out for a second and buy myself a minute to think, I would say that the greatest magic trick, and not just in 2026, ever, is always the trick that is perfect for the situation you’re in at that moment, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I talk in the book, you might remember, about the ham sandwich theory, and for those readers who haven’t read my book, like, this is such a great illustration of what magic can be at its ultimate fullest expression, which is that if I reach up behind your ear right now, Jessica, and pull out a ham sandwich from nowhere, and you don’t know how it’s done, you’re gonna look at me and go, “That was random,” because it is.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s totally random. It’s not interesting. It’s not logical. I just pulled a ham sandwich out. It’s arbitrary. But if instead you said to me, “Gosh, Josh, I am starving. I’m just… I’m really in the mood for a ham sandwich. Is that weird to say?” And I then went, “Oh, yeah?” And now I pull a ham sandwich out of your ear- \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I have fulfilled a need. I have responded to a need you created, and now that magic is everything to you. It’s personal. It felt directly tailored to something you had. It fulfilled a need, hunger that you were feeling at that moment. So, whatever the answer is to your question, it would have to be something that’s specific to an audience in 2026.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I want to push Josh here. What does the perfect trick look like in 2026 with technology constantly shifting the boundaries between that’s awesome and yeah, that’s an app? What happens to an art form so cognizant of the limits of human cognition when everyone carries around a device that seems to know everything and never forget?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Well, maybe it calls attention to that very device. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I always see things through the lens of what I’m working on, and I’m working on a trick where we turn off all the lights in the theater, which is instantly and immediately fascinating to me because it gets to be this change of scenery, right? And I have everybody take out their cell phones and put their light on. So, you get that little concert vibe going where they’re moving their light around, and it looks like twinkling stars in this huge theater, right? And all these people are here. And I’m working on a trick where they are whittled down. So, through a series of choices that the audience makes, I would say, “Okay, if you were born in September, stay standing with your light on. Everybody else sit down, turn your phone off.” And it goes from 1,000 lights to… 30 lights. And you whittle them down all the way until you get one person with a light, and then you predict that person’s phone number, which is the thing that they’re holding- the whole time, and you’re right there, and how could you have known it would be them, and the choices that were made.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then the very light they’re holding has the phone number, and that’s what I’m working on, and that’s what I’ll call the ultimate trick in 2026 cause I haven’t fully figured out how I’m doing it yet. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh my gosh. Well, I just love hearing you talk about this knowing that you don’t even fully know how you’re going to do it yet.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Like, it seems like as a creator, you think about how do I want the audience to feel, what should they be paying attention to, what should they be thinking about, and then eventually you get back to the mechanism of how you pull this all off. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yes. It’s exactly that. And that was a really important shift for me is not to become obsessed with method, not to get bogged down by well, that would be great, but I don’t know how to do it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think that all my best things have come out of me sort of going I’m not gonna think about how this could be done. I just wanna play out in my mind what it would look like if I could do it. And then I need to figure out a way to do it. And, you know, you fall on your face a lot, and you realize, like, well, I can’t do that, but I could do this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And you might fall short of the ideal, but at least you’re thinking… in the minds of the audience, and I think that’s a really good place to start. You know, empathy is a really important tool for a magician, and I imagine it’s probably a huge focus of everybody who’s helping to design AI is to think empathically, to think like your audience.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, the first thing you have to do as a magician is get out of your own head and to try to get into the head of the people you’re performing for. What do they wanna see? What would they think if you did this? How would they react if you did this?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Empathy as one of the ultimate superpowers? Yeah, I buy that. Human creators of all stripes have long recognized its power. Magicians like Joshua Jay rely on empathy to create experiences that delight, and stun, and fill a need. Engineers rely on empathy to imagine how users will engage with confusing or intimidating tools.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What’s different is that now we have machines that empathize, too, or at least convincingly perform empathy. Which brings us right back to where we started, me going to my chatbot three days later to report back on how that email landed, the email we carefully crafted together. As that line between what we perceive to be reality versus magic continues to blur before our eyes, I’m glad to have the occasional magician as a tour guide.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love. Life, Automated is a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. We’re distributed by KQED. Our show was produced by Jesse Dukes. Music by Stephen Jackson. Recording help from Will Feeney, George Christensen, and Leila Mohammed. Administrative support, recording, and wise counsel from Stacia Sliger.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#transcript\">View Full Episode Transcript\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Are you hurting the planet every time you query a chatbot? \u003ca href=\"https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/academics-research/faculty/busse_meghan/\">Economist Meghan Busse\u003c/a> suggests that may be the wrong question. In this episode, we zoom out from the usual concerns about frivolous queries (and, for that matter, resource‑hungry data centers) to ask an even more basic question: is intense demand for AI locking us into decades of additional fossil fuel use, or is it accelerating investment in clean energy? Busse helps us sort real climate levers from symbolic ones, and explains why AI’s ultimate impact on the planet will likely come down to how we build and power it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Further Reading: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://apnorc.org/projects/epic-climate-change-2025/?doing_wp_cron=1784231367.3495659828186035156250\">Public attitudes toward climate policy, technology, and the environment\u003c/a> — AP-NORC\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/24/us/j-stuart-adams-utah-senate-data-center.html\">Utah Senate President Loses Primary After Data Center Backlash\u003c/a> — Jack Healy, \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This is Life, Automated, the show where we explore how technologies like AI are changing how we live, work, and make decisions.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This episode, we dive into one of the biggest anxieties around AI. What it’s doing to the environment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[News footage from people protesting data centers…]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You see this anxiety most dramatically in the protests against data centers. It wasn’t that long ago that just a handful of people might show up at town halls to object to a project. These days, communities are getting more organized… and they’re increasingly calling for moratoriums on data center construction. That’s state and local freezes, basically. They’re citing worries about water, noise, pollution, land, and strain on the electrical grid.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[News footage from people protesting data centers…]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I wanted to understand something more basic. Just how bad is AI for the planet? Particularly compared to all the other things we do to the planet? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And what should \u003cem>I \u003c/em>actually do about it? Like me, personally, as an individual.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I have environmentally conscious friends who refuse to use tools like ChatGPT and Claude on principle, particularly for frivolous queries like generating a vacation packing list. I have a suspicion that this might be a little…beside the point? But maybe it isn’t?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I reached out to Meghan Busse. She’s an economist at the Kellogg School of Management. She’s NOT an expert in data centers specifically, but she is an expert on energy, climate, environmental policy and how markets affect those things.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I thought she’d be a great person to zoom out and really help me understand the big picture. How should I, someone who cares about the environment, be thinking about AI?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Meghan helped me separate the problem into two major buckets. The very real local impacts of a data center moving into your neighborhood, and the broader impacts on CO2 emissions that lead to climate change. And that second bucket is where the story gets really interesting. Because Meghan actually sees a future where demand for AI could benefit the planet. \u003cem>If\u003c/em> we stay laser-focused on the right things.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love, and this is Life, Automated, a show from Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, distributed by KQED. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Meghan and I started our conversation discussing a recent AP NORC poll that suggested more than 70 percent of Americans are either somewhat, very, or extremely concerned about the environmental impact of AI. That’s more than the percentages concerned about the impact of air travel or meat production. I wanted to know what she made of this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: So on the one hand, I’m excited to have that many Americans concerned about the environmental and climate impact of anything. On the other hand, it is consistent with what I think we see in other places, which is that people sometimes have the biggest fears about the things that are either least familiar or the newest, or what I call as a technical term “scary.” And something that’s scary is something that makes a good disaster movie. It’s what makes nuclear power scary. But, coal-fired, air pollution not scary. Even though the coal-fired power pollution is much more dangerous in terms of mortality than nuclear power is. There’s the same kind of thing. I think that AI seems scary in the sense that we can imagine a great disaster movie about it when you don’t imagine a great disaster movie about the CO2 emissions that come from meat production.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>I don’t think Meghan’s point here is that climate fears about AI are themselves irrational. But she’s already raising a question that will run through our whole conversation: are we worried about the right things, in the right proportions?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>When it comes to AI, there are big global concerns around CO2 emissions related to energy use, both in terms of the energy required to train the models, and the energy required to run them. We’ll get to those. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But first I wanted to talk about THE thing people are most upset about. And that is what Meghan calls “local proximity issues”: the concerns we might have when we learn a data center is moving in nearby. Which in some ways are like lots of bad neighbor issues people have had with factories in the past….but with some new twists. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> There’s a sense in which the pollution, if you will, that comes from data centers is different from what we have typically thought of when we think about industrial sources. And there we are oftentimes thinking about air pollution or water pollution or things that are contaminants that can harm people’s health because they get into people’s bodies, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And a data center is much cleaner in that sense. There isn’t smoke, right? There isn’t particulate matter that potentially people are breathing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But people are worried, and I think with some justification, about other kinds of externality, other kinds of consequences. And one of the things that people have been increasingly talking about is the issue of noise. So you might be near a data center, and it wouldn’t be loud or clattery or things like that, but people describe sort of a hum or a buzz or a vibration- \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Ugh \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> …Or a thrum, that can affect people’s health, not because it bothers them that they hear it, but because it is a low-level vibration that can affect people’s bodies in ways that I’m not sure we understand really well. And part of the challenge is that to the extent that we have noise ordinances… They are to deal with things that are loud, that affect hearing, that disturb quality of life in the way that we’re used to conventionally thinking about noise.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. It’s almost like we don’t even know enough about this to be able to design the regulations and the agreements that would then satisfy the community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: The more I read about this, the more I’m coming to believe that near people is just not a good place to put data centers. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So we talked about noise. What are some of the other concerns?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>There are land use kinds of questions. So there is, for example, in northern Utah, in a place called Cache Valley near Logan, there was recently a proposal for an absolutely gigantic data center that would have been just a huge presence in the land there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> I looked it up. The proposed hyperscale data center she is talking about would be located in Northwest Box Elder County, near Cache Valley. Its size: 40,000 acres. After a public backlash, the size of the proposed project area (that’s the area including both the facilities and the land) was reduced to 20,000 acres–a mere two-thirds the size of San Francisco. Having a neighbor that big…yeah, I can see how that could cause alarm.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then there’s the question of water. Data centers have a reputation for being real water guzzlers, mostly because they so often rely on evaporative cooling to function. In places where water is scarce, they can compete with households, farms, and other businesses, driving prices way up…or leading to shortages. And while there are some ways to make water use more efficient, these come with their own tradeoffs, like requiring a lot more energy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Still, as challenging as these “local proximity issues” are to deal with–Meghan says they are NOT what concerns her most about AI’s potential impact on the climate. In part because they SHOULD be solvable.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I think that many of the proximity concerns could be solved by altering where data centers are built. There’s a lot of parts of this country that don’t have a lot of people in them, right? There are less dense, less populated places that could be chosen for data centers. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> But why aren’t they?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s not as convenient.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> It’ll cost more money.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I don’t know if the land will cost more money but it’s not as easily connected. It’s not necessarily where the eventual employees that you wanna have running the data center or interacting with the data center are most easily located.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: So I can see why people are so angry about having a data center as a next-door neighbor.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But what makes data centers bad neighbors is not necessarily what makes them so bad for the climate overall. What Meghan Busse–a researcher who studies climate policy–is most concerned about … is energy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I think that the electricity use might be the thing that is most distinctive about AI. And the reason for this is that electricity use in the US and the EU and these sort of high income developed countries, was increasing pretty steadily along with population and GDP from post World War II until about 2000. And then it flattened out. And this isn’t because people didn’t want to use electricity for things. It’s because the devices that they used for electricity became more energy efficient. So we could get more of what economists call energy services without needing as much electricity. But what that meant is that, for about 20 years, there wasn’t a lot of need to greatly expand or to really expand very much at all.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Electricity transmission, electricity distribution, the total amount of electricity generation that we could do. And then all of a sudden along comes AI which is really pretty energy intensive… electricity demand, and it’s coming at the same time that there’s an increase in vehicle electrification and an increase of automation and manufacturing. And it’s putting a real strain on the ability of electricity systems to meet that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: So. Here in the U.S., we have a couple decades where the overall amount of electricity we need to generate basically stays flat. Electricity goes into a lot more THINGS, but all those THINGS get more efficient at about the same rate. That’s two decades of not a lot of pressure to build new power plants. And then…BAM.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the timing of this new strain on the electrical grid is relevant because there’s been another trend at play.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>Over the last decade or 15 years, the cost of generating electricity with renewable sources, with wind and solar has fallen dramatically. So over the course of about 10 years, the cost of generating electricity with solar went down to about a tenth of what it was, and the cost of generating electricity with wind had gone down to about a third of what it was.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s a tenth. That means if it used to cost a dollar, it costs 10 cents.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> That is right. It’s a phenomenal reduction. It’s a phenomenal achievement for the climate. It might be the single best event to happen for the climate in the last 10 or 15 years. It’s just phenomenal. And it is so phenomenal that what was happening is that basically electricity generators all over the country and also in many places in the world, were in a process of transition, in a process of retiring coal-fired power plants and replacing them with solar and wind – not because they were greener, but because they were actually cheaper.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: Thanks to just how much the economics here have changed, nearly all new electricity generators planned for the future in North America were renewables, with a bit of natural gas, but basically NO coal. This was going to be a huge win for the planet. Even better, coal plants were actively being PHASED OUT. If you cared about CO2 emissions, this was very good news. Everything was headed in the right direction.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Then, out of nowhere, for the first time in forever, demand skyrockets. All those plans…\u003cem>poof\u003c/em>!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Because these data centers – they don’t just need a ton of energy. They need it fast.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>If you’re an AI company, you want to get your new data centers up and running as quickly as possible. You feel like you’re in a race: to create the best models, to capture the market. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Sure, in the long run, over 20 or 25 years, solar and wind are cheaper. But if you need power NOW, keeping an aging coal plant running a few more years is going to be pretty tempting. And that smooth march toward cleaner power just got a lot choppier.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Coming up: the SHORT-run danger to the climate is that AI keeps fossil fuels around longer. But in the long run? Well, the jury is still out. Economist Meghan Busse offers up a scenario where the AI data center boom could actually benefit the planet. That’s after the break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[ad break]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So I wanna turn now to the future. I think you’re completely right that there is this sense that, you know, we’re straining under today’s demand and everybody is telling us AI is going to be so many times bigger in a couple of years. What the heck happens? How are we gonna keep up? And how does this not like, destroy the planet? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>So if we take the long run view of the climate, many climate scholars would tell you a key component of decarbonization is to electrify as much as we can. And the reason is because we have really good ways of producing electricity without producing carbon. So solar and wind are two of them that we’ve talked about.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But nuclear energy also has the potential to produce a lot of electricity in a decarbonized way. And there’s other possibilities also out there. Things like geothermal that, you know, people are experimenting with and hoping will come up to scale. But, there are, you know, like I say, wind and solar that we already have, nuclear that we also have already, although we need to re-remember how to build it at low cost.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong> Love:\u003c/strong> Just jumping in here to say, if you’re over 40, and you care about the environment, you might remember a time when environmentalists were dead set against nuclear power. There was that deadly catastrophic meltdown at Chernobyl in 1986, and a scary miss at Three Mile Island a few years earlier. Environmentalists were also concerned about the huge challenge of storing toxic nuclear waste for thousands of years.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>But in the last forty years, many scientists agree that nuclear power and storage have gotten much safer and less unwieldy. And some environmentalists now feel that the benefits of nuclear power–like not spewing carbon into the atmosphere–well outweigh the risks. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: And there’s other kinds of technologies, like carbon capture that might allow us to burn fossil fuels and still capture the carbon and have it be decarbonized. So we’ve got some really great potential for being able to produce decarbonized electricity.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so what that means is that in the long run, I’m not that concerned from a climate perspective about anything that uses electricity. So if there were a new technology to come about that needs a lot more energy and you told me “guess what the energy it needs is electricity”, then I kind of heave a sigh of relief as opposed to saying what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more steel or what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more cement. Or what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more air travel because those are things we don’t yet know how to decarbonize very well or at very low cost. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. So in the long run, because it can be electrified and because we know that there are renewable ways of getting electricity, less concern. How long is the long run? And I guess how much damage is done along the way?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> It’s a really great question because some of the answer to how long is the long run depends on how we respond in the short run. If the way we respond to the intense increase in demand is the short run, is building new fossil fuel electricity generation, like building new gas plants, those plants have a long life, 20 or 30 years. Things that exist tend to get used. And so if we respond to the short run pressure by making investments in new fossil fuel generation, then that’s gonna push that long run of decarbonization off farther, and so, for the climate, the best news scenario in some ways would be if builders of AI and data centers decided, well, wait a minute, the most reliable and fastest way for us to have the electricity we need is in some sense to be self-sufficient in a green way, to build a data center, to build accompanying, solar or wind generation, to build a battery facility that will help make sure that that power is available to us throughout the day.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, and some of this is happening, so I just read, Google is making plans to purchase Intersect, which is a wind and solar company bringing energy generation in house and almost kind of treating it as a competitive advantage.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. And Microsoft recently made an agreement to reopen one of the reactors at Three Mile Island. Again to do essentially self-supply with nuclear energy. So to the extent that the response to this is self-supply with some kind of green energy, that is number one, good for the climate, but potentially also good for, accelerating storage technologies, for accelerating our relearning how to build nuclear in a competitive way. Those would be the best case scenarios.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Accelerating because it’s really kind of like, forcing people to innovate and act very quickly to do the kinds of things that they might otherwise do gradually over the course of 10, 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>And what drives down costs in many, many technologies is, increasing the scale of demand, basically increasing the size of the market. When you go from, here’s a technology we have thought of to one we have tested in the lab and demonstrated to one that we have done pilot projects of and works, there is this important phase between that and sort of a large scale deployment, which is increasing the scale of production enough that costs fall. And I totally believe it’s something we’ll get better at as we do it more.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think that’s a really, really interesting point. Like there is a world in which we can harness all of this demand and all of this excitement for AI and actually leave the climate in a better place than it would’ve otherwise been.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And I, you know, and I’m not saying this is guaranteed, I’m not saying that this is obviously what’s gonna happen, but it like, there is a path and it actually has the potential to accelerate you know, green energy and decarbonisation in ways it would be really positive for the climate. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[musical interlude]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>So, Meghan does see a future where demand for AI helps to accelerate deployment of low-cost green energy. But that’s not the only optimistic claim people make about AI and the climate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Okay. So I wanna do a kind of nerdy lightning round with you. So I’m gonna share some other ways that AI might impact the climate in a positive way. And, we’ll say zero is like, that is all just hand-wavy gobbledygook, and five is like, yeah, actually there could really be something there. Okay, you ready? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>Ready. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> ‘Optimization of the energy grid.’ \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I’ll give that a four.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: It’s pretty good.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I’ll give it a four because it is the sort of thing that AI can do. Right. There’s already predictive maintenance being done and AI being applied to in a lot of different, manufacturing and other kinds of things. That said, it’s actually not the most important thing, I think, in the optimization of our energy system. We just need way more transmission in way more places to accommodate renewables generated in places where we historically have not had electricity generation like the Southwest. And just greater supply and greater flexibility. So I’ll give it a four ’cause AI can do it, but it’s actually not the most important thing you could do if you wanted to improve the electricity transmission grid.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: That was very thorough.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>Not very lightning, but very thorough.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Very thorough. ‘Better climate modeling.’\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> There’s a sense in which I don’t know whether you really want AI climate models. In the sense that part of the trick about AI is that it’s a bit of a black box. Climate models are basically systems of equations. Systems of equations that capture relationships we know about heat and temperature and weather and ocean currents, and then how those translate into economic consequences. Part of the value of climate models is that we know what assumptions we have put in and we can alter those assumptions in ways that allow us to see if this were different, how would that matter for our climate predictions? I’m not sure that sort of turning that over to the more black box nature of AI is gonna improve our confidence. So I’ll give that a one.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> ‘Discovery of more energy efficient materials.’\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> That’s a great question. So there are absolutely applications in which materials matter – Battery chemistry, for example, is one that a lot of people are pushing on. So I’ll give that a three.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: ‘\u003c/strong>Precision agriculture’, which is this idea that with the right sensors and models, we could give crops exactly what they need when they need it, improving yield, reducing waste.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I’m gonna give that a one, not because I don’t think AI can do it, but because, doing it more efficiently or more precisely doesn’t do a lot for decarbonization if we’re using the same techniques, in terms of fertilizer, in terms of planting, in terms of those kinds of things. So I think in order to make a big difference in agricultural emissions, we’re gonna need something other than, sort of more precisely, implementing the technologies that we have. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>Ok, so Meghan doesn’t see a lot of potential in some of these super optimistic “AI will just create new things that help!” scenarios. But she does see the potential for AI to fuel a clean-energy tech boom. At least…in the future. But how can people like \u003cem>me\u003c/em> make a difference TODAY? SHOULD I feel guilty asking ChatGPT for that packing list?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So, one of the things, as I teach classes about climate, and as I talk to audiences about climate, I oftentimes get questions about, what can I do that matters?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I don’t think people always have a very good idea of what are the first order things, like what are the big levers they have in their hand, and what are the small levers that they have in their hand? If you ask me, I would tell you that generating a packing list on ChatGPT for your vacation is not a very big climate lever. In fact, it’s a much bigger climate lever how far away you are going on your vacation and how are you going to get there? If you’re taking an airplane, the climate impact of your airplane trip is many, many, many, many, many ChatGPT queries. So I think part of the reason people have fixated on ChatGPT queries as something that is part of their climate virtual signaling, is that it seems like an easy thing to do or not do as opposed to deciding not to drive to work or not to have a furnace in my house, or…\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> – not to go on vacation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Not to go on vacation. And so we sometimes get fixated on the things that seem like, well, that just seems like an excessive choice that you are making. But if you wanna know the things that really matter, the things that really matter have to do with your more direct use of fossil fuels. Think about how you set your thermostat. Think about what you drive and where you drive. Think about where you choose to fly. Think about what you eat – Beef is especially carbon intensive. So if people are asking me, what is a marginal choice I could make in my life that would make a difference, using ChatGPT would not be at the top of my list. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>Well, what about…joining some sort of collective action effort–like the protests we’re seeing against data centers? That strategy seems to have more potential, at least for those local issues. Because all data centers are not created equal, and being able to shape the kind of neighbor you have, and where it situates itself – that feels big.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Are communities able to get some concessions from these companies that allow the data centers to sort of be built, you know, somewhere in the proximity, but in ways that don’t impact people’s quality of life as much?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I think there’s actually a ton of heterogeneity as you go from place to place. I mean, it’s very different if you have something that is federally regulated, something like, you know, pharmaceuticals or those kinds of things, right? The process might be slow, but once a decision gets made for something that’s federally regulated, then that’s the decision, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And when you have something that, that it’s gonna be sort of a location and state by state, it’s just gonna be a lot noisier, it’s gonna be a lot less predictable, and I think that, what’s gonna turn out to be a successful strategy for communities to employ is gonna depend a lot on the particular location where they are.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>And perhaps what they want to get out of it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And perhaps what they wanna get out of it, which may not be the same place to place.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Yeah, I mean, could this be a good thing, where communities, you know, depending on the tools they have available to them, can sort of look at the situation and in a bespoke way try to come to an agreement that is going to be as much of a win-win as possible?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>I hope so.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[music bump]\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> It’s clear that local opposition to data centers can have an impact. Meghan sent me a newspaper article involving a powerful Utah State Senator. He served as chairman of the agency that approved that giant data center we talked about earlier, the one that was downsized to a mere 20,000 acres. And…he recently lost his Republican primary bid, in what the article called, “one of the most high-profile signs of the voter backlash to data center projects.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Which brings us to the final thing that individuals can do–something that works for these local issues and for the climate more broadly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> If you care about having an individual impact, by far the most impactful thing you can do is how you vote.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> There you go.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And that’s because so many of the changes you need are not about our individual consumption or our individual behavior. It’s about the \u003cem>systems\u003c/em> of how we generate energy. The systems of how we use energy, what we use energy for. The things that are really, really hard for individuals to influence with their choices. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So in some sense, I don’t care very much about whether you use ChatGPT, I don’t care very much about whether you eat beef or not. I don’t even care about where you fly on vacation as long as you vote. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So you teach the next generation of CEOs, C-Suite Executives, and you have children of your own. What advice do you have for young people right now?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> The advice that I have for young people now is that while it seems, like on the political front, it might seem like things are discouraging on the technology and economic front, there’s huge potential.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We can \u003cem>absolutely\u003c/em> decarbonize, we can \u003cem>absolutely\u003c/em> avoid the worst effects of climate change. We have many of the technologies and I totally believe that we can invent the technologies that we still need. It is absolutely within our power if we choose to do it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>So. In the long run, how will AI impact the climate? It depends. But after my conversation with Meghan, I’m thinking: it doesn’t depend that much on the AI itself. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It depends more on what we do with demand for the technology. Where and how companies build out their data centers and especially how they choose to power them. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Are we going to live in a world where demand pushes back our transition to clean energy, locking us into fossil fuels for decades? We’re seeing some of that world right now. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But we can also choose a world where this explosion of demand hastens our transition to clean energy. And we’re also seeing some of that right now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The politics of clean energy can look grim…But as long as clean-energy technologies keep getting cheaper and easier to scale, the optimistic scenario is still on the table.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is Life Automated, a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Distributed by KQED. I’m Jess Love. Special thanks to today’s guest, Meghan Busse, an economist and associate professor at the Kellogg School of Management.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We’re produced by Jesse Dukes. Music by Steven Jackson. Recording by George Christensen and Will Feeney. Support and wise counsel from Stacia Sliger. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>END\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Are you hurting the planet every time you query a chatbot? \u003ca href=\"https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/academics-research/faculty/busse_meghan/\">Economist Meghan Busse\u003c/a> suggests that may be the wrong question. In this episode, we zoom out from the usual concerns about frivolous queries (and, for that matter, resource‑hungry data centers) to ask an even more basic question: is intense demand for AI locking us into decades of additional fossil fuel use, or is it accelerating investment in clean energy? Busse helps us sort real climate levers from symbolic ones, and explains why AI’s ultimate impact on the planet will likely come down to how we build and power it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://apnorc.org/projects/epic-climate-change-2025/?doing_wp_cron=1784231367.3495659828186035156250\">Public attitudes toward climate policy, technology, and the environment\u003c/a> — AP-NORC\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This is Life, Automated, the show where we explore how technologies like AI are changing how we live, work, and make decisions.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This is Life, Automated, the show where we explore how technologies like AI are changing how we live, work, and make decisions.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This episode, we dive into one of the biggest anxieties around AI. What it’s doing to the environment.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>This episode, we dive into one of the biggest anxieties around AI. What it’s doing to the environment.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[News footage from people protesting data centers…]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[News footage from people protesting data centers…]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You see this anxiety most dramatically in the protests against data centers. It wasn’t that long ago that just a handful of people might show up at town halls to object to a project. These days, communities are getting more organized… and they’re increasingly calling for moratoriums on data center construction. That’s state and local freezes, basically. They’re citing worries about water, noise, pollution, land, and strain on the electrical grid.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You see this anxiety most dramatically in the protests against data centers. It wasn’t that long ago that just a handful of people might show up at town halls to object to a project. These days, communities are getting more organized… and they’re increasingly calling for moratoriums on data center construction. That’s state and local freezes, basically. They’re citing worries about water, noise, pollution, land, and strain on the electrical grid.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[News footage from people protesting data centers…]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But I wanted to understand something more basic. Just how bad is AI for the planet? Particularly compared to all the other things we do to the planet? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But I wanted to understand something more basic. Just how bad is AI for the planet? Particularly compared to all the other things we do to the planet? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And what should \u003cem>I \u003c/em>actually do about it? Like me, personally, as an individual.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And what should \u003cem>I \u003c/em>actually do about it? Like me, personally, as an individual.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I have environmentally conscious friends who refuse to use tools like ChatGPT and Claude on principle, particularly for frivolous queries like generating a vacation packing list. I have a suspicion that this might be a little…beside the point? But maybe it isn’t?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I have environmentally conscious friends who refuse to use tools like ChatGPT and Claude on principle, particularly for frivolous queries like generating a vacation packing list. I have a suspicion that this might be a little…beside the point? But maybe it isn’t?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I reached out to Meghan Busse. She’s an economist at the Kellogg School of Management. She’s NOT an expert in data centers specifically, but she is an expert on energy, climate, environmental policy and how markets affect those things.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I reached out to Meghan Busse. She’s an economist at the Kellogg School of Management. She’s NOT an expert in data centers specifically, but she is an expert on energy, climate, environmental policy and how markets affect those things.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I thought she’d be a great person to zoom out and really help me understand the big picture. How should I, someone who cares about the environment, be thinking about AI?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I thought she’d be a great person to zoom out and really help me understand the big picture. How should I, someone who cares about the environment, be thinking about AI?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Meghan helped me separate the problem into two major buckets. The very real local impacts of a data center moving into your neighborhood, and the broader impacts on CO2 emissions that lead to climate change. And that second bucket is where the story gets really interesting. Because Meghan actually sees a future where demand for AI could benefit the planet. \u003cem>If\u003c/em> we stay laser-focused on the right things.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Meghan helped me separate the problem into two major buckets. The very real local impacts of a data center moving into your neighborhood, and the broader impacts on CO2 emissions that lead to climate change. And that second bucket is where the story gets really interesting. Because Meghan actually sees a future where demand for AI could benefit the planet. \u003cem>If\u003c/em> we stay laser-focused on the right things.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love, and this is Life, Automated, a show from Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, distributed by KQED. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Meghan and I started our conversation discussing a recent AP NORC poll that suggested more than 70 percent of Americans are either somewhat, very, or extremely concerned about the environmental impact of AI. That’s more than the percentages concerned about the impact of air travel or meat production. I wanted to know what she made of this.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Meghan and I started our conversation discussing a recent AP NORC poll that suggested more than 70 percent of Americans are either somewhat, very, or extremely concerned about the environmental impact of AI. That’s more than the percentages concerned about the impact of air travel or meat production. I wanted to know what she made of this.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: So on the one hand, I’m excited to have that many Americans concerned about the environmental and climate impact of anything. On the other hand, it is consistent with what I think we see in other places, which is that people sometimes have the biggest fears about the things that are either least familiar or the newest, or what I call as a technical term “scary.” And something that’s scary is something that makes a good disaster movie. It’s what makes nuclear power scary. But, coal-fired, air pollution not scary. Even though the coal-fired power pollution is much more dangerous in terms of mortality than nuclear power is. There’s the same kind of thing. I think that AI seems scary in the sense that we can imagine a great disaster movie about it when you don’t imagine a great disaster movie about the CO2 emissions that come from meat production.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: So on the one hand, I’m excited to have that many Americans concerned about the environmental and climate impact of anything. On the other hand, it is consistent with what I think we see in other places, which is that people sometimes have the biggest fears about the things that are either least familiar or the newest, or what I call as a technical term “scary.” And something that’s scary is something that makes a good disaster movie. It’s what makes nuclear power scary. But, coal-fired, air pollution not scary. Even though the coal-fired power pollution is much more dangerous in terms of mortality than nuclear power is. There’s the same kind of thing. I think that AI seems scary in the sense that we can imagine a great disaster movie about it when you don’t imagine a great disaster movie about the CO2 emissions that come from meat production.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>I don’t think Meghan’s point here is that climate fears about AI are themselves irrational. But she’s already raising a question that will run through our whole conversation: are we worried about the right things, in the right proportions?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>I don’t think Meghan’s point here is that climate fears about AI are themselves irrational. But she’s already raising a question that will run through our whole conversation: are we worried about the right things, in the right proportions?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>When it comes to AI, there are big global concerns around CO2 emissions related to energy use, both in terms of the energy required to train the models, and the energy required to run them. We’ll get to those. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>When it comes to AI, there are big global concerns around CO2 emissions related to energy use, both in terms of the energy required to train the models, and the energy required to run them. We’ll get to those. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But first I wanted to talk about THE thing people are most upset about. And that is what Meghan calls “local proximity issues”: the concerns we might have when we learn a data center is moving in nearby. Which in some ways are like lots of bad neighbor issues people have had with factories in the past….but with some new twists. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But first I wanted to talk about THE thing people are most upset about. And that is what Meghan calls “local proximity issues”: the concerns we might have when we learn a data center is moving in nearby. Which in some ways are like lots of bad neighbor issues people have had with factories in the past….but with some new twists. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> There’s a sense in which the pollution, if you will, that comes from data centers is different from what we have typically thought of when we think about industrial sources. And there we are oftentimes thinking about air pollution or water pollution or things that are contaminants that can harm people’s health because they get into people’s bodies, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> There’s a sense in which the pollution, if you will, that comes from data centers is different from what we have typically thought of when we think about industrial sources. And there we are oftentimes thinking about air pollution or water pollution or things that are contaminants that can harm people’s health because they get into people’s bodies, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And a data center is much cleaner in that sense. There isn’t smoke, right? There isn’t particulate matter that potentially people are breathing. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And a data center is much cleaner in that sense. There isn’t smoke, right? There isn’t particulate matter that potentially people are breathing. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But people are worried, and I think with some justification, about other kinds of externality, other kinds of consequences. And one of the things that people have been increasingly talking about is the issue of noise. So you might be near a data center, and it wouldn’t be loud or clattery or things like that, but people describe sort of a hum or a buzz or a vibration- \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But people are worried, and I think with some justification, about other kinds of externality, other kinds of consequences. And one of the things that people have been increasingly talking about is the issue of noise. So you might be near a data center, and it wouldn’t be loud or clattery or things like that, but people describe sort of a hum or a buzz or a vibration- \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Ugh \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> …Or a thrum, that can affect people’s health, not because it bothers them that they hear it, but because it is a low-level vibration that can affect people’s bodies in ways that I’m not sure we understand really well. And part of the challenge is that to the extent that we have noise ordinances… They are to deal with things that are loud, that affect hearing, that disturb quality of life in the way that we’re used to conventionally thinking about noise.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> …Or a thrum, that can affect people’s health, not because it bothers them that they hear it, but because it is a low-level vibration that can affect people’s bodies in ways that I’m not sure we understand really well. And part of the challenge is that to the extent that we have noise ordinances… They are to deal with things that are loud, that affect hearing, that disturb quality of life in the way that we’re used to conventionally thinking about noise.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. It’s almost like we don’t even know enough about this to be able to design the regulations and the agreements that would then satisfy the community.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. It’s almost like we don’t even know enough about this to be able to design the regulations and the agreements that would then satisfy the community.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: The more I read about this, the more I’m coming to believe that near people is just not a good place to put data centers. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: The more I read about this, the more I’m coming to believe that near people is just not a good place to put data centers. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So we talked about noise. What are some of the other concerns?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So we talked about noise. What are some of the other concerns?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>There are land use kinds of questions. So there is, for example, in northern Utah, in a place called Cache Valley near Logan, there was recently a proposal for an absolutely gigantic data center that would have been just a huge presence in the land there.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>There are land use kinds of questions. So there is, for example, in northern Utah, in a place called Cache Valley near Logan, there was recently a proposal for an absolutely gigantic data center that would have been just a huge presence in the land there.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> I looked it up. The proposed hyperscale data center she is talking about would be located in Northwest Box Elder County, near Cache Valley. Its size: 40,000 acres. After a public backlash, the size of the proposed project area (that’s the area including both the facilities and the land) was reduced to 20,000 acres–a mere two-thirds the size of San Francisco. Having a neighbor that big…yeah, I can see how that could cause alarm.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> I looked it up. The proposed hyperscale data center she is talking about would be located in Northwest Box Elder County, near Cache Valley. Its size: 40,000 acres. After a public backlash, the size of the proposed project area (that’s the area including both the facilities and the land) was reduced to 20,000 acres–a mere two-thirds the size of San Francisco. Having a neighbor that big…yeah, I can see how that could cause alarm.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And then there’s the question of water. Data centers have a reputation for being real water guzzlers, mostly because they so often rely on evaporative cooling to function. In places where water is scarce, they can compete with households, farms, and other businesses, driving prices way up…or leading to shortages. And while there are some ways to make water use more efficient, these come with their own tradeoffs, like requiring a lot more energy.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And then there’s the question of water. Data centers have a reputation for being real water guzzlers, mostly because they so often rely on evaporative cooling to function. In places where water is scarce, they can compete with households, farms, and other businesses, driving prices way up…or leading to shortages. And while there are some ways to make water use more efficient, these come with their own tradeoffs, like requiring a lot more energy.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Still, as challenging as these “local proximity issues” are to deal with–Meghan says they are NOT what concerns her most about AI’s potential impact on the climate. In part because they SHOULD be solvable.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Still, as challenging as these “local proximity issues” are to deal with–Meghan says they are NOT what concerns her most about AI’s potential impact on the climate. In part because they SHOULD be solvable.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I think that many of the proximity concerns could be solved by altering where data centers are built. There’s a lot of parts of this country that don’t have a lot of people in them, right? There are less dense, less populated places that could be chosen for data centers. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I think that many of the proximity concerns could be solved by altering where data centers are built. There’s a lot of parts of this country that don’t have a lot of people in them, right? There are less dense, less populated places that could be chosen for data centers. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> But why aren’t they?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> But why aren’t they?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s not as convenient.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s not as convenient.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> It’ll cost more money.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> It’ll cost more money.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I don’t know if the land will cost more money but it’s not as easily connected. It’s not necessarily where the eventual employees that you wanna have running the data center or interacting with the data center are most easily located.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I don’t know if the land will cost more money but it’s not as easily connected. It’s not necessarily where the eventual employees that you wanna have running the data center or interacting with the data center are most easily located.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: So I can see why people are so angry about having a data center as a next-door neighbor.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: So I can see why people are so angry about having a data center as a next-door neighbor.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But what makes data centers bad neighbors is not necessarily what makes them so bad for the climate overall. What Meghan Busse–a researcher who studies climate policy–is most concerned about … is energy.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But what makes data centers bad neighbors is not necessarily what makes them so bad for the climate overall. What Meghan Busse–a researcher who studies climate policy–is most concerned about … is energy.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I think that the electricity use might be the thing that is most distinctive about AI. And the reason for this is that electricity use in the US and the EU and these sort of high income developed countries, was increasing pretty steadily along with population and GDP from post World War II until about 2000. And then it flattened out. And this isn’t because people didn’t want to use electricity for things. It’s because the devices that they used for electricity became more energy efficient. So we could get more of what economists call energy services without needing as much electricity. But what that meant is that, for about 20 years, there wasn’t a lot of need to greatly expand or to really expand very much at all.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I think that the electricity use might be the thing that is most distinctive about AI. And the reason for this is that electricity use in the US and the EU and these sort of high income developed countries, was increasing pretty steadily along with population and GDP from post World War II until about 2000. And then it flattened out. And this isn’t because people didn’t want to use electricity for things. It’s because the devices that they used for electricity became more energy efficient. So we could get more of what economists call energy services without needing as much electricity. But what that meant is that, for about 20 years, there wasn’t a lot of need to greatly expand or to really expand very much at all.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Electricity transmission, electricity distribution, the total amount of electricity generation that we could do. And then all of a sudden along comes AI which is really pretty energy intensive… electricity demand, and it’s coming at the same time that there’s an increase in vehicle electrification and an increase of automation and manufacturing. And it’s putting a real strain on the ability of electricity systems to meet that. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Electricity transmission, electricity distribution, the total amount of electricity generation that we could do. And then all of a sudden along comes AI which is really pretty energy intensive… electricity demand, and it’s coming at the same time that there’s an increase in vehicle electrification and an increase of automation and manufacturing. And it’s putting a real strain on the ability of electricity systems to meet that. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: So. Here in the U.S., we have a couple decades where the overall amount of electricity we need to generate basically stays flat. Electricity goes into a lot more THINGS, but all those THINGS get more efficient at about the same rate. That’s two decades of not a lot of pressure to build new power plants. And then…BAM.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: So. Here in the U.S., we have a couple decades where the overall amount of electricity we need to generate basically stays flat. Electricity goes into a lot more THINGS, but all those THINGS get more efficient at about the same rate. That’s two decades of not a lot of pressure to build new power plants. And then…BAM.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And the timing of this new strain on the electrical grid is relevant because there’s been another trend at play.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And the timing of this new strain on the electrical grid is relevant because there’s been another trend at play.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>Over the last decade or 15 years, the cost of generating electricity with renewable sources, with wind and solar has fallen dramatically. So over the course of about 10 years, the cost of generating electricity with solar went down to about a tenth of what it was, and the cost of generating electricity with wind had gone down to about a third of what it was.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>Over the last decade or 15 years, the cost of generating electricity with renewable sources, with wind and solar has fallen dramatically. So over the course of about 10 years, the cost of generating electricity with solar went down to about a tenth of what it was, and the cost of generating electricity with wind had gone down to about a third of what it was.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s a tenth. That means if it used to cost a dollar, it costs 10 cents.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s a tenth. That means if it used to cost a dollar, it costs 10 cents.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> That is right. It’s a phenomenal reduction. It’s a phenomenal achievement for the climate. It might be the single best event to happen for the climate in the last 10 or 15 years. It’s just phenomenal. And it is so phenomenal that what was happening is that basically electricity generators all over the country and also in many places in the world, were in a process of transition, in a process of retiring coal-fired power plants and replacing them with solar and wind – not because they were greener, but because they were actually cheaper.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> That is right. It’s a phenomenal reduction. It’s a phenomenal achievement for the climate. It might be the single best event to happen for the climate in the last 10 or 15 years. It’s just phenomenal. And it is so phenomenal that what was happening is that basically electricity generators all over the country and also in many places in the world, were in a process of transition, in a process of retiring coal-fired power plants and replacing them with solar and wind – not because they were greener, but because they were actually cheaper.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: Thanks to just how much the economics here have changed, nearly all new electricity generators planned for the future in North America were renewables, with a bit of natural gas, but basically NO coal. This was going to be a huge win for the planet. Even better, coal plants were actively being PHASED OUT. If you cared about CO2 emissions, this was very good news. Everything was headed in the right direction.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: Thanks to just how much the economics here have changed, nearly all new electricity generators planned for the future in North America were renewables, with a bit of natural gas, but basically NO coal. This was going to be a huge win for the planet. Even better, coal plants were actively being PHASED OUT. If you cared about CO2 emissions, this was very good news. Everything was headed in the right direction.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Then, out of nowhere, for the first time in forever, demand skyrockets. All those plans…\u003cem>poof\u003c/em>!\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Then, out of nowhere, for the first time in forever, demand skyrockets. All those plans…\u003cem>poof\u003c/em>!\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Because these data centers – they don’t just need a ton of energy. They need it fast.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Because these data centers – they don’t just need a ton of energy. They need it fast.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>If you’re an AI company, you want to get your new data centers up and running as quickly as possible. You feel like you’re in a race: to create the best models, to capture the market. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>If you’re an AI company, you want to get your new data centers up and running as quickly as possible. You feel like you’re in a race: to create the best models, to capture the market. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Sure, in the long run, over 20 or 25 years, solar and wind are cheaper. But if you need power NOW, keeping an aging coal plant running a few more years is going to be pretty tempting. And that smooth march toward cleaner power just got a lot choppier.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Sure, in the long run, over 20 or 25 years, solar and wind are cheaper. But if you need power NOW, keeping an aging coal plant running a few more years is going to be pretty tempting. And that smooth march toward cleaner power just got a lot choppier.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Coming up: the SHORT-run danger to the climate is that AI keeps fossil fuels around longer. But in the long run? Well, the jury is still out. Economist Meghan Busse offers up a scenario where the AI data center boom could actually benefit the planet. That’s after the break.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Coming up: the SHORT-run danger to the climate is that AI keeps fossil fuels around longer. But in the long run? Well, the jury is still out. Economist Meghan Busse offers up a scenario where the AI data center boom could actually benefit the planet. That’s after the break.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So I wanna turn now to the future. I think you’re completely right that there is this sense that, you know, we’re straining under today’s demand and everybody is telling us AI is going to be so many times bigger in a couple of years. What the heck happens? How are we gonna keep up? And how does this not like, destroy the planet? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So I wanna turn now to the future. I think you’re completely right that there is this sense that, you know, we’re straining under today’s demand and everybody is telling us AI is going to be so many times bigger in a couple of years. What the heck happens? How are we gonna keep up? And how does this not like, destroy the planet? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>So if we take the long run view of the climate, many climate scholars would tell you a key component of decarbonization is to electrify as much as we can. And the reason is because we have really good ways of producing electricity without producing carbon. So solar and wind are two of them that we’ve talked about.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>So if we take the long run view of the climate, many climate scholars would tell you a key component of decarbonization is to electrify as much as we can. And the reason is because we have really good ways of producing electricity without producing carbon. So solar and wind are two of them that we’ve talked about.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But nuclear energy also has the potential to produce a lot of electricity in a decarbonized way. And there’s other possibilities also out there. Things like geothermal that, you know, people are experimenting with and hoping will come up to scale. But, there are, you know, like I say, wind and solar that we already have, nuclear that we also have already, although we need to re-remember how to build it at low cost.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But nuclear energy also has the potential to produce a lot of electricity in a decarbonized way. And there’s other possibilities also out there. Things like geothermal that, you know, people are experimenting with and hoping will come up to scale. But, there are, you know, like I say, wind and solar that we already have, nuclear that we also have already, although we need to re-remember how to build it at low cost.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong> Love:\u003c/strong> Just jumping in here to say, if you’re over 40, and you care about the environment, you might remember a time when environmentalists were dead set against nuclear power. There was that deadly catastrophic meltdown at Chernobyl in 1986, and a scary miss at Three Mile Island a few years earlier. Environmentalists were also concerned about the huge challenge of storing toxic nuclear waste for thousands of years.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>But in the last forty years, many scientists agree that nuclear power and storage have gotten much safer and less unwieldy. And some environmentalists now feel that the benefits of nuclear power–like not spewing carbon into the atmosphere–well outweigh the risks. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong> Love:\u003c/strong> Just jumping in here to say, if you’re over 40, and you care about the environment, you might remember a time when environmentalists were dead set against nuclear power. There was that deadly catastrophic meltdown at Chernobyl in 1986, and a scary miss at Three Mile Island a few years earlier. Environmentalists were also concerned about the huge challenge of storing toxic nuclear waste for thousands of years.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>But in the last forty years, many scientists agree that nuclear power and storage have gotten much safer and less unwieldy. And some environmentalists now feel that the benefits of nuclear power–like not spewing carbon into the atmosphere–well outweigh the risks. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: And there’s other kinds of technologies, like carbon capture that might allow us to burn fossil fuels and still capture the carbon and have it be decarbonized. So we’ve got some really great potential for being able to produce decarbonized electricity.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: And there’s other kinds of technologies, like carbon capture that might allow us to burn fossil fuels and still capture the carbon and have it be decarbonized. So we’ve got some really great potential for being able to produce decarbonized electricity.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so what that means is that in the long run, I’m not that concerned from a climate perspective about anything that uses electricity. So if there were a new technology to come about that needs a lot more energy and you told me “guess what the energy it needs is electricity”, then I kind of heave a sigh of relief as opposed to saying what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more steel or what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more cement. Or what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more air travel because those are things we don’t yet know how to decarbonize very well or at very low cost. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so what that means is that in the long run, I’m not that concerned from a climate perspective about anything that uses electricity. So if there were a new technology to come about that needs a lot more energy and you told me “guess what the energy it needs is electricity”, then I kind of heave a sigh of relief as opposed to saying what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more steel or what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more cement. Or what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more air travel because those are things we don’t yet know how to decarbonize very well or at very low cost. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. So in the long run, because it can be electrified and because we know that there are renewable ways of getting electricity, less concern. How long is the long run? And I guess how much damage is done along the way?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. So in the long run, because it can be electrified and because we know that there are renewable ways of getting electricity, less concern. How long is the long run? And I guess how much damage is done along the way?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> It’s a really great question because some of the answer to how long is the long run depends on how we respond in the short run. If the way we respond to the intense increase in demand is the short run, is building new fossil fuel electricity generation, like building new gas plants, those plants have a long life, 20 or 30 years. Things that exist tend to get used. And so if we respond to the short run pressure by making investments in new fossil fuel generation, then that’s gonna push that long run of decarbonization off farther, and so, for the climate, the best news scenario in some ways would be if builders of AI and data centers decided, well, wait a minute, the most reliable and fastest way for us to have the electricity we need is in some sense to be self-sufficient in a green way, to build a data center, to build accompanying, solar or wind generation, to build a battery facility that will help make sure that that power is available to us throughout the day.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> It’s a really great question because some of the answer to how long is the long run depends on how we respond in the short run. If the way we respond to the intense increase in demand is the short run, is building new fossil fuel electricity generation, like building new gas plants, those plants have a long life, 20 or 30 years. Things that exist tend to get used. And so if we respond to the short run pressure by making investments in new fossil fuel generation, then that’s gonna push that long run of decarbonization off farther, and so, for the climate, the best news scenario in some ways would be if builders of AI and data centers decided, well, wait a minute, the most reliable and fastest way for us to have the electricity we need is in some sense to be self-sufficient in a green way, to build a data center, to build accompanying, solar or wind generation, to build a battery facility that will help make sure that that power is available to us throughout the day.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, and some of this is happening, so I just read, Google is making plans to purchase Intersect, which is a wind and solar company bringing energy generation in house and almost kind of treating it as a competitive advantage.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, and some of this is happening, so I just read, Google is making plans to purchase Intersect, which is a wind and solar company bringing energy generation in house and almost kind of treating it as a competitive advantage.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. And Microsoft recently made an agreement to reopen one of the reactors at Three Mile Island. Again to do essentially self-supply with nuclear energy. So to the extent that the response to this is self-supply with some kind of green energy, that is number one, good for the climate, but potentially also good for, accelerating storage technologies, for accelerating our relearning how to build nuclear in a competitive way. Those would be the best case scenarios.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. And Microsoft recently made an agreement to reopen one of the reactors at Three Mile Island. Again to do essentially self-supply with nuclear energy. So to the extent that the response to this is self-supply with some kind of green energy, that is number one, good for the climate, but potentially also good for, accelerating storage technologies, for accelerating our relearning how to build nuclear in a competitive way. Those would be the best case scenarios.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Accelerating because it’s really kind of like, forcing people to innovate and act very quickly to do the kinds of things that they might otherwise do gradually over the course of 10, 20 years.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Accelerating because it’s really kind of like, forcing people to innovate and act very quickly to do the kinds of things that they might otherwise do gradually over the course of 10, 20 years.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>And what drives down costs in many, many technologies is, increasing the scale of demand, basically increasing the size of the market. When you go from, here’s a technology we have thought of to one we have tested in the lab and demonstrated to one that we have done pilot projects of and works, there is this important phase between that and sort of a large scale deployment, which is increasing the scale of production enough that costs fall. And I totally believe it’s something we’ll get better at as we do it more.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>And what drives down costs in many, many technologies is, increasing the scale of demand, basically increasing the size of the market. When you go from, here’s a technology we have thought of to one we have tested in the lab and demonstrated to one that we have done pilot projects of and works, there is this important phase between that and sort of a large scale deployment, which is increasing the scale of production enough that costs fall. And I totally believe it’s something we’ll get better at as we do it more.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think that’s a really, really interesting point. Like there is a world in which we can harness all of this demand and all of this excitement for AI and actually leave the climate in a better place than it would’ve otherwise been.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think that’s a really, really interesting point. Like there is a world in which we can harness all of this demand and all of this excitement for AI and actually leave the climate in a better place than it would’ve otherwise been.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And I, you know, and I’m not saying this is guaranteed, I’m not saying that this is obviously what’s gonna happen, but it like, there is a path and it actually has the potential to accelerate you know, green energy and decarbonisation in ways it would be really positive for the climate. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And I, you know, and I’m not saying this is guaranteed, I’m not saying that this is obviously what’s gonna happen, but it like, there is a path and it actually has the potential to accelerate you know, green energy and decarbonisation in ways it would be really positive for the climate. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[musical interlude]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[musical interlude]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>So, Meghan does see a future where demand for AI helps to accelerate deployment of low-cost green energy. But that’s not the only optimistic claim people make about AI and the climate.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>So, Meghan does see a future where demand for AI helps to accelerate deployment of low-cost green energy. But that’s not the only optimistic claim people make about AI and the climate.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Okay. So I wanna do a kind of nerdy lightning round with you. So I’m gonna share some other ways that AI might impact the climate in a positive way. And, we’ll say zero is like, that is all just hand-wavy gobbledygook, and five is like, yeah, actually there could really be something there. Okay, you ready? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Okay. So I wanna do a kind of nerdy lightning round with you. So I’m gonna share some other ways that AI might impact the climate in a positive way. And, we’ll say zero is like, that is all just hand-wavy gobbledygook, and five is like, yeah, actually there could really be something there. Okay, you ready? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>Ready. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>Ready. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> ‘Optimization of the energy grid.’ \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> ‘Optimization of the energy grid.’ \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I’ll give that a four.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I’ll give that a four.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: It’s pretty good.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: It’s pretty good.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I’ll give it a four because it is the sort of thing that AI can do. Right. There’s already predictive maintenance being done and AI being applied to in a lot of different, manufacturing and other kinds of things. That said, it’s actually not the most important thing, I think, in the optimization of our energy system. We just need way more transmission in way more places to accommodate renewables generated in places where we historically have not had electricity generation like the Southwest. And just greater supply and greater flexibility. So I’ll give it a four ’cause AI can do it, but it’s actually not the most important thing you could do if you wanted to improve the electricity transmission grid.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I’ll give it a four because it is the sort of thing that AI can do. Right. There’s already predictive maintenance being done and AI being applied to in a lot of different, manufacturing and other kinds of things. That said, it’s actually not the most important thing, I think, in the optimization of our energy system. We just need way more transmission in way more places to accommodate renewables generated in places where we historically have not had electricity generation like the Southwest. And just greater supply and greater flexibility. So I’ll give it a four ’cause AI can do it, but it’s actually not the most important thing you could do if you wanted to improve the electricity transmission grid.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: That was very thorough.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: That was very thorough.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>Not very lightning, but very thorough.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>Not very lightning, but very thorough.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Very thorough. ‘Better climate modeling.’\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Very thorough. ‘Better climate modeling.’\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> There’s a sense in which I don’t know whether you really want AI climate models. In the sense that part of the trick about AI is that it’s a bit of a black box. Climate models are basically systems of equations. Systems of equations that capture relationships we know about heat and temperature and weather and ocean currents, and then how those translate into economic consequences. Part of the value of climate models is that we know what assumptions we have put in and we can alter those assumptions in ways that allow us to see if this were different, how would that matter for our climate predictions? I’m not sure that sort of turning that over to the more black box nature of AI is gonna improve our confidence. So I’ll give that a one.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> There’s a sense in which I don’t know whether you really want AI climate models. In the sense that part of the trick about AI is that it’s a bit of a black box. Climate models are basically systems of equations. Systems of equations that capture relationships we know about heat and temperature and weather and ocean currents, and then how those translate into economic consequences. Part of the value of climate models is that we know what assumptions we have put in and we can alter those assumptions in ways that allow us to see if this were different, how would that matter for our climate predictions? I’m not sure that sort of turning that over to the more black box nature of AI is gonna improve our confidence. So I’ll give that a one.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> ‘Discovery of more energy efficient materials.’\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> That’s a great question. So there are absolutely applications in which materials matter – Battery chemistry, for example, is one that a lot of people are pushing on. So I’ll give that a three.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> That’s a great question. So there are absolutely applications in which materials matter – Battery chemistry, for example, is one that a lot of people are pushing on. So I’ll give that a three.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: ‘\u003c/strong>Precision agriculture’, which is this idea that with the right sensors and models, we could give crops exactly what they need when they need it, improving yield, reducing waste.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: ‘\u003c/strong>Precision agriculture’, which is this idea that with the right sensors and models, we could give crops exactly what they need when they need it, improving yield, reducing waste.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I’m gonna give that a one, not because I don’t think AI can do it, but because, doing it more efficiently or more precisely doesn’t do a lot for decarbonization if we’re using the same techniques, in terms of fertilizer, in terms of planting, in terms of those kinds of things. So I think in order to make a big difference in agricultural emissions, we’re gonna need something other than, sort of more precisely, implementing the technologies that we have. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I’m gonna give that a one, not because I don’t think AI can do it, but because, doing it more efficiently or more precisely doesn’t do a lot for decarbonization if we’re using the same techniques, in terms of fertilizer, in terms of planting, in terms of those kinds of things. So I think in order to make a big difference in agricultural emissions, we’re gonna need something other than, sort of more precisely, implementing the technologies that we have. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>Ok, so Meghan doesn’t see a lot of potential in some of these super optimistic “AI will just create new things that help!” scenarios. But she does see the potential for AI to fuel a clean-energy tech boom. At least…in the future. But how can people like \u003cem>me\u003c/em> make a difference TODAY? SHOULD I feel guilty asking ChatGPT for that packing list?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So, one of the things, as I teach classes about climate, and as I talk to audiences about climate, I oftentimes get questions about, what can I do that matters?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So, one of the things, as I teach classes about climate, and as I talk to audiences about climate, I oftentimes get questions about, what can I do that matters?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I don’t think people always have a very good idea of what are the first order things, like what are the big levers they have in their hand, and what are the small levers that they have in their hand? If you ask me, I would tell you that generating a packing list on ChatGPT for your vacation is not a very big climate lever. In fact, it’s a much bigger climate lever how far away you are going on your vacation and how are you going to get there? If you’re taking an airplane, the climate impact of your airplane trip is many, many, many, many, many ChatGPT queries. So I think part of the reason people have fixated on ChatGPT queries as something that is part of their climate virtual signaling, is that it seems like an easy thing to do or not do as opposed to deciding not to drive to work or not to have a furnace in my house, or…\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I don’t think people always have a very good idea of what are the first order things, like what are the big levers they have in their hand, and what are the small levers that they have in their hand? If you ask me, I would tell you that generating a packing list on ChatGPT for your vacation is not a very big climate lever. In fact, it’s a much bigger climate lever how far away you are going on your vacation and how are you going to get there? If you’re taking an airplane, the climate impact of your airplane trip is many, many, many, many, many ChatGPT queries. So I think part of the reason people have fixated on ChatGPT queries as something that is part of their climate virtual signaling, is that it seems like an easy thing to do or not do as opposed to deciding not to drive to work or not to have a furnace in my house, or…\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> – not to go on vacation.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Not to go on vacation. And so we sometimes get fixated on the things that seem like, well, that just seems like an excessive choice that you are making. But if you wanna know the things that really matter, the things that really matter have to do with your more direct use of fossil fuels. Think about how you set your thermostat. Think about what you drive and where you drive. Think about where you choose to fly. Think about what you eat – Beef is especially carbon intensive. So if people are asking me, what is a marginal choice I could make in my life that would make a difference, using ChatGPT would not be at the top of my list. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Not to go on vacation. And so we sometimes get fixated on the things that seem like, well, that just seems like an excessive choice that you are making. But if you wanna know the things that really matter, the things that really matter have to do with your more direct use of fossil fuels. Think about how you set your thermostat. Think about what you drive and where you drive. Think about where you choose to fly. Think about what you eat – Beef is especially carbon intensive. So if people are asking me, what is a marginal choice I could make in my life that would make a difference, using ChatGPT would not be at the top of my list. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>Well, what about…joining some sort of collective action effort–like the protests we’re seeing against data centers? That strategy seems to have more potential, at least for those local issues. Because all data centers are not created equal, and being able to shape the kind of neighbor you have, and where it situates itself – that feels big.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>Well, what about…joining some sort of collective action effort–like the protests we’re seeing against data centers? That strategy seems to have more potential, at least for those local issues. Because all data centers are not created equal, and being able to shape the kind of neighbor you have, and where it situates itself – that feels big.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Are communities able to get some concessions from these companies that allow the data centers to sort of be built, you know, somewhere in the proximity, but in ways that don’t impact people’s quality of life as much?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Are communities able to get some concessions from these companies that allow the data centers to sort of be built, you know, somewhere in the proximity, but in ways that don’t impact people’s quality of life as much?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I think there’s actually a ton of heterogeneity as you go from place to place. I mean, it’s very different if you have something that is federally regulated, something like, you know, pharmaceuticals or those kinds of things, right? The process might be slow, but once a decision gets made for something that’s federally regulated, then that’s the decision, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I think there’s actually a ton of heterogeneity as you go from place to place. I mean, it’s very different if you have something that is federally regulated, something like, you know, pharmaceuticals or those kinds of things, right? The process might be slow, but once a decision gets made for something that’s federally regulated, then that’s the decision, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And when you have something that, that it’s gonna be sort of a location and state by state, it’s just gonna be a lot noisier, it’s gonna be a lot less predictable, and I think that, what’s gonna turn out to be a successful strategy for communities to employ is gonna depend a lot on the particular location where they are.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And when you have something that, that it’s gonna be sort of a location and state by state, it’s just gonna be a lot noisier, it’s gonna be a lot less predictable, and I think that, what’s gonna turn out to be a successful strategy for communities to employ is gonna depend a lot on the particular location where they are.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>And perhaps what they want to get out of it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>And perhaps what they want to get out of it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And perhaps what they wanna get out of it, which may not be the same place to place.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And perhaps what they wanna get out of it, which may not be the same place to place.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Yeah, I mean, could this be a good thing, where communities, you know, depending on the tools they have available to them, can sort of look at the situation and in a bespoke way try to come to an agreement that is going to be as much of a win-win as possible?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Yeah, I mean, could this be a good thing, where communities, you know, depending on the tools they have available to them, can sort of look at the situation and in a bespoke way try to come to an agreement that is going to be as much of a win-win as possible?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>I hope so.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>I hope so.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[music bump]\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> It’s clear that local opposition to data centers can have an impact. Meghan sent me a newspaper article involving a powerful Utah State Senator. He served as chairman of the agency that approved that giant data center we talked about earlier, the one that was downsized to a mere 20,000 acres. And…he recently lost his Republican primary bid, in what the article called, “one of the most high-profile signs of the voter backlash to data center projects.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> It’s clear that local opposition to data centers can have an impact. Meghan sent me a newspaper article involving a powerful Utah State Senator. He served as chairman of the agency that approved that giant data center we talked about earlier, the one that was downsized to a mere 20,000 acres. And…he recently lost his Republican primary bid, in what the article called, “one of the most high-profile signs of the voter backlash to data center projects.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Which brings us to the final thing that individuals can do–something that works for these local issues and for the climate more broadly.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Which brings us to the final thing that individuals can do–something that works for these local issues and for the climate more broadly.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> If you care about having an individual impact, by far the most impactful thing you can do is how you vote.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> If you care about having an individual impact, by far the most impactful thing you can do is how you vote.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> There you go.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And that’s because so many of the changes you need are not about our individual consumption or our individual behavior. It’s about the \u003cem>systems\u003c/em> of how we generate energy. The systems of how we use energy, what we use energy for. The things that are really, really hard for individuals to influence with their choices. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And that’s because so many of the changes you need are not about our individual consumption or our individual behavior. It’s about the \u003cem>systems\u003c/em> of how we generate energy. The systems of how we use energy, what we use energy for. The things that are really, really hard for individuals to influence with their choices. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So in some sense, I don’t care very much about whether you use ChatGPT, I don’t care very much about whether you eat beef or not. I don’t even care about where you fly on vacation as long as you vote. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So in some sense, I don’t care very much about whether you use ChatGPT, I don’t care very much about whether you eat beef or not. I don’t even care about where you fly on vacation as long as you vote. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So you teach the next generation of CEOs, C-Suite Executives, and you have children of your own. What advice do you have for young people right now?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So you teach the next generation of CEOs, C-Suite Executives, and you have children of your own. What advice do you have for young people right now?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> The advice that I have for young people now is that while it seems, like on the political front, it might seem like things are discouraging on the technology and economic front, there’s huge potential.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> The advice that I have for young people now is that while it seems, like on the political front, it might seem like things are discouraging on the technology and economic front, there’s huge potential.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We can \u003cem>absolutely\u003c/em> decarbonize, we can \u003cem>absolutely\u003c/em> avoid the worst effects of climate change. We have many of the technologies and I totally believe that we can invent the technologies that we still need. It is absolutely within our power if we choose to do it. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We can \u003cem>absolutely\u003c/em> decarbonize, we can \u003cem>absolutely\u003c/em> avoid the worst effects of climate change. We have many of the technologies and I totally believe that we can invent the technologies that we still need. It is absolutely within our power if we choose to do it. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>So. In the long run, how will AI impact the climate? It depends. But after my conversation with Meghan, I’m thinking: it doesn’t depend that much on the AI itself. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>So. In the long run, how will AI impact the climate? It depends. But after my conversation with Meghan, I’m thinking: it doesn’t depend that much on the AI itself. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It depends more on what we do with demand for the technology. Where and how companies build out their data centers and especially how they choose to power them. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Are we going to live in a world where demand pushes back our transition to clean energy, locking us into fossil fuels for decades? We’re seeing some of that world right now. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But we can also choose a world where this explosion of demand hastens our transition to clean energy. And we’re also seeing some of that right now.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The politics of clean energy can look grim…But as long as clean-energy technologies keep getting cheaper and easier to scale, the optimistic scenario is still on the table.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This is Life Automated, a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Distributed by KQED. I’m Jess Love. Special thanks to today’s guest, Meghan Busse, an economist and associate professor at the Kellogg School of Management.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We’re produced by Jesse Dukes. Music by Steven Jackson. Recording by George Christensen and Will Feeney. Support and wise counsel from Stacia Sliger. \u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "Does AI Have to Be Bad News for the Planet? (with Meghan Busse) | KQED",
"description": "Are you hurting the planet every time you query a chatbot? Economist Meghan Busse suggests that may be the wrong question. In this episode, we zoom out from the usual concerns about frivolous queries (and, for that matter, resource‑hungry data centers) to ask an even more basic question: is intense demand for AI locking us into decades of additional fossil fuel use, or is it accelerating investment in clean energy? Busse helps us sort real climate levers from symbolic ones, and explains why AI’s ultimate impact on the planet will likely come down to how we build and power it.",
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"socialDescription": "Are you hurting the planet every time you query a chatbot? Economist Meghan Busse suggests that may be the wrong question. In this episode, we zoom out from the usual concerns about frivolous queries (and, for that matter, resource‑hungry data centers) to ask an even more basic question: is intense demand for AI locking us into decades of additional fossil fuel use, or is it accelerating investment in clean energy? Busse helps us sort real climate levers from symbolic ones, and explains why AI’s ultimate impact on the planet will likely come down to how we build and power it.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#transcript\">View Full Episode Transcript\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Are you hurting the planet every time you query a chatbot? \u003ca href=\"https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/academics-research/faculty/busse_meghan/\">Economist Meghan Busse\u003c/a> suggests that may be the wrong question. In this episode, we zoom out from the usual concerns about frivolous queries (and, for that matter, resource‑hungry data centers) to ask an even more basic question: is intense demand for AI locking us into decades of additional fossil fuel use, or is it accelerating investment in clean energy? Busse helps us sort real climate levers from symbolic ones, and explains why AI’s ultimate impact on the planet will likely come down to how we build and power it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Further Reading: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://apnorc.org/projects/epic-climate-change-2025/?doing_wp_cron=1784231367.3495659828186035156250\">Public attitudes toward climate policy, technology, and the environment\u003c/a> — AP-NORC\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/24/us/j-stuart-adams-utah-senate-data-center.html\">Utah Senate President Loses Primary After Data Center Backlash\u003c/a> — Jack Healy, \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This is Life, Automated, the show where we explore how technologies like AI are changing how we live, work, and make decisions.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This episode, we dive into one of the biggest anxieties around AI. What it’s doing to the environment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[News footage from people protesting data centers…]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You see this anxiety most dramatically in the protests against data centers. It wasn’t that long ago that just a handful of people might show up at town halls to object to a project. These days, communities are getting more organized… and they’re increasingly calling for moratoriums on data center construction. That’s state and local freezes, basically. They’re citing worries about water, noise, pollution, land, and strain on the electrical grid.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[News footage from people protesting data centers…]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I wanted to understand something more basic. Just how bad is AI for the planet? Particularly compared to all the other things we do to the planet? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And what should \u003cem>I \u003c/em>actually do about it? Like me, personally, as an individual.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I have environmentally conscious friends who refuse to use tools like ChatGPT and Claude on principle, particularly for frivolous queries like generating a vacation packing list. I have a suspicion that this might be a little…beside the point? But maybe it isn’t?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I reached out to Meghan Busse. She’s an economist at the Kellogg School of Management. She’s NOT an expert in data centers specifically, but she is an expert on energy, climate, environmental policy and how markets affect those things.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I thought she’d be a great person to zoom out and really help me understand the big picture. How should I, someone who cares about the environment, be thinking about AI?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Meghan helped me separate the problem into two major buckets. The very real local impacts of a data center moving into your neighborhood, and the broader impacts on CO2 emissions that lead to climate change. And that second bucket is where the story gets really interesting. Because Meghan actually sees a future where demand for AI could benefit the planet. \u003cem>If\u003c/em> we stay laser-focused on the right things.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love, and this is Life, Automated, a show from Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, distributed by KQED. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Meghan and I started our conversation discussing a recent AP NORC poll that suggested more than 70 percent of Americans are either somewhat, very, or extremely concerned about the environmental impact of AI. That’s more than the percentages concerned about the impact of air travel or meat production. I wanted to know what she made of this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: So on the one hand, I’m excited to have that many Americans concerned about the environmental and climate impact of anything. On the other hand, it is consistent with what I think we see in other places, which is that people sometimes have the biggest fears about the things that are either least familiar or the newest, or what I call as a technical term “scary.” And something that’s scary is something that makes a good disaster movie. It’s what makes nuclear power scary. But, coal-fired, air pollution not scary. Even though the coal-fired power pollution is much more dangerous in terms of mortality than nuclear power is. There’s the same kind of thing. I think that AI seems scary in the sense that we can imagine a great disaster movie about it when you don’t imagine a great disaster movie about the CO2 emissions that come from meat production.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>I don’t think Meghan’s point here is that climate fears about AI are themselves irrational. But she’s already raising a question that will run through our whole conversation: are we worried about the right things, in the right proportions?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>When it comes to AI, there are big global concerns around CO2 emissions related to energy use, both in terms of the energy required to train the models, and the energy required to run them. We’ll get to those. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But first I wanted to talk about THE thing people are most upset about. And that is what Meghan calls “local proximity issues”: the concerns we might have when we learn a data center is moving in nearby. Which in some ways are like lots of bad neighbor issues people have had with factories in the past….but with some new twists. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> There’s a sense in which the pollution, if you will, that comes from data centers is different from what we have typically thought of when we think about industrial sources. And there we are oftentimes thinking about air pollution or water pollution or things that are contaminants that can harm people’s health because they get into people’s bodies, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And a data center is much cleaner in that sense. There isn’t smoke, right? There isn’t particulate matter that potentially people are breathing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But people are worried, and I think with some justification, about other kinds of externality, other kinds of consequences. And one of the things that people have been increasingly talking about is the issue of noise. So you might be near a data center, and it wouldn’t be loud or clattery or things like that, but people describe sort of a hum or a buzz or a vibration- \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Ugh \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> …Or a thrum, that can affect people’s health, not because it bothers them that they hear it, but because it is a low-level vibration that can affect people’s bodies in ways that I’m not sure we understand really well. And part of the challenge is that to the extent that we have noise ordinances… They are to deal with things that are loud, that affect hearing, that disturb quality of life in the way that we’re used to conventionally thinking about noise.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. It’s almost like we don’t even know enough about this to be able to design the regulations and the agreements that would then satisfy the community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: The more I read about this, the more I’m coming to believe that near people is just not a good place to put data centers. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So we talked about noise. What are some of the other concerns?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>There are land use kinds of questions. So there is, for example, in northern Utah, in a place called Cache Valley near Logan, there was recently a proposal for an absolutely gigantic data center that would have been just a huge presence in the land there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> I looked it up. The proposed hyperscale data center she is talking about would be located in Northwest Box Elder County, near Cache Valley. Its size: 40,000 acres. After a public backlash, the size of the proposed project area (that’s the area including both the facilities and the land) was reduced to 20,000 acres–a mere two-thirds the size of San Francisco. Having a neighbor that big…yeah, I can see how that could cause alarm.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then there’s the question of water. Data centers have a reputation for being real water guzzlers, mostly because they so often rely on evaporative cooling to function. In places where water is scarce, they can compete with households, farms, and other businesses, driving prices way up…or leading to shortages. And while there are some ways to make water use more efficient, these come with their own tradeoffs, like requiring a lot more energy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Still, as challenging as these “local proximity issues” are to deal with–Meghan says they are NOT what concerns her most about AI’s potential impact on the climate. In part because they SHOULD be solvable.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I think that many of the proximity concerns could be solved by altering where data centers are built. There’s a lot of parts of this country that don’t have a lot of people in them, right? There are less dense, less populated places that could be chosen for data centers. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> But why aren’t they?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s not as convenient.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> It’ll cost more money.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I don’t know if the land will cost more money but it’s not as easily connected. It’s not necessarily where the eventual employees that you wanna have running the data center or interacting with the data center are most easily located.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: So I can see why people are so angry about having a data center as a next-door neighbor.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But what makes data centers bad neighbors is not necessarily what makes them so bad for the climate overall. What Meghan Busse–a researcher who studies climate policy–is most concerned about … is energy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I think that the electricity use might be the thing that is most distinctive about AI. And the reason for this is that electricity use in the US and the EU and these sort of high income developed countries, was increasing pretty steadily along with population and GDP from post World War II until about 2000. And then it flattened out. And this isn’t because people didn’t want to use electricity for things. It’s because the devices that they used for electricity became more energy efficient. So we could get more of what economists call energy services without needing as much electricity. But what that meant is that, for about 20 years, there wasn’t a lot of need to greatly expand or to really expand very much at all.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Electricity transmission, electricity distribution, the total amount of electricity generation that we could do. And then all of a sudden along comes AI which is really pretty energy intensive… electricity demand, and it’s coming at the same time that there’s an increase in vehicle electrification and an increase of automation and manufacturing. And it’s putting a real strain on the ability of electricity systems to meet that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: So. Here in the U.S., we have a couple decades where the overall amount of electricity we need to generate basically stays flat. Electricity goes into a lot more THINGS, but all those THINGS get more efficient at about the same rate. That’s two decades of not a lot of pressure to build new power plants. And then…BAM.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the timing of this new strain on the electrical grid is relevant because there’s been another trend at play.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>Over the last decade or 15 years, the cost of generating electricity with renewable sources, with wind and solar has fallen dramatically. So over the course of about 10 years, the cost of generating electricity with solar went down to about a tenth of what it was, and the cost of generating electricity with wind had gone down to about a third of what it was.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s a tenth. That means if it used to cost a dollar, it costs 10 cents.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> That is right. It’s a phenomenal reduction. It’s a phenomenal achievement for the climate. It might be the single best event to happen for the climate in the last 10 or 15 years. It’s just phenomenal. And it is so phenomenal that what was happening is that basically electricity generators all over the country and also in many places in the world, were in a process of transition, in a process of retiring coal-fired power plants and replacing them with solar and wind – not because they were greener, but because they were actually cheaper.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: Thanks to just how much the economics here have changed, nearly all new electricity generators planned for the future in North America were renewables, with a bit of natural gas, but basically NO coal. This was going to be a huge win for the planet. Even better, coal plants were actively being PHASED OUT. If you cared about CO2 emissions, this was very good news. Everything was headed in the right direction.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Then, out of nowhere, for the first time in forever, demand skyrockets. All those plans…\u003cem>poof\u003c/em>!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Because these data centers – they don’t just need a ton of energy. They need it fast.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>If you’re an AI company, you want to get your new data centers up and running as quickly as possible. You feel like you’re in a race: to create the best models, to capture the market. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Sure, in the long run, over 20 or 25 years, solar and wind are cheaper. But if you need power NOW, keeping an aging coal plant running a few more years is going to be pretty tempting. And that smooth march toward cleaner power just got a lot choppier.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Coming up: the SHORT-run danger to the climate is that AI keeps fossil fuels around longer. But in the long run? Well, the jury is still out. Economist Meghan Busse offers up a scenario where the AI data center boom could actually benefit the planet. That’s after the break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So I wanna turn now to the future. I think you’re completely right that there is this sense that, you know, we’re straining under today’s demand and everybody is telling us AI is going to be so many times bigger in a couple of years. What the heck happens? How are we gonna keep up? And how does this not like, destroy the planet? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>So if we take the long run view of the climate, many climate scholars would tell you a key component of decarbonization is to electrify as much as we can. And the reason is because we have really good ways of producing electricity without producing carbon. So solar and wind are two of them that we’ve talked about.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But nuclear energy also has the potential to produce a lot of electricity in a decarbonized way. And there’s other possibilities also out there. Things like geothermal that, you know, people are experimenting with and hoping will come up to scale. But, there are, you know, like I say, wind and solar that we already have, nuclear that we also have already, although we need to re-remember how to build it at low cost.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong> Love:\u003c/strong> Just jumping in here to say, if you’re over 40, and you care about the environment, you might remember a time when environmentalists were dead set against nuclear power. There was that deadly catastrophic meltdown at Chernobyl in 1986, and a scary miss at Three Mile Island a few years earlier. Environmentalists were also concerned about the huge challenge of storing toxic nuclear waste for thousands of years.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>But in the last forty years, many scientists agree that nuclear power and storage have gotten much safer and less unwieldy. And some environmentalists now feel that the benefits of nuclear power–like not spewing carbon into the atmosphere–well outweigh the risks. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: And there’s other kinds of technologies, like carbon capture that might allow us to burn fossil fuels and still capture the carbon and have it be decarbonized. So we’ve got some really great potential for being able to produce decarbonized electricity.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so what that means is that in the long run, I’m not that concerned from a climate perspective about anything that uses electricity. So if there were a new technology to come about that needs a lot more energy and you told me “guess what the energy it needs is electricity”, then I kind of heave a sigh of relief as opposed to saying what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more steel or what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more cement. Or what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more air travel because those are things we don’t yet know how to decarbonize very well or at very low cost. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. So in the long run, because it can be electrified and because we know that there are renewable ways of getting electricity, less concern. How long is the long run? And I guess how much damage is done along the way?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> It’s a really great question because some of the answer to how long is the long run depends on how we respond in the short run. If the way we respond to the intense increase in demand is the short run, is building new fossil fuel electricity generation, like building new gas plants, those plants have a long life, 20 or 30 years. Things that exist tend to get used. And so if we respond to the short run pressure by making investments in new fossil fuel generation, then that’s gonna push that long run of decarbonization off farther, and so, for the climate, the best news scenario in some ways would be if builders of AI and data centers decided, well, wait a minute, the most reliable and fastest way for us to have the electricity we need is in some sense to be self-sufficient in a green way, to build a data center, to build accompanying, solar or wind generation, to build a battery facility that will help make sure that that power is available to us throughout the day.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, and some of this is happening, so I just read, Google is making plans to purchase Intersect, which is a wind and solar company bringing energy generation in house and almost kind of treating it as a competitive advantage.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. And Microsoft recently made an agreement to reopen one of the reactors at Three Mile Island. Again to do essentially self-supply with nuclear energy. So to the extent that the response to this is self-supply with some kind of green energy, that is number one, good for the climate, but potentially also good for, accelerating storage technologies, for accelerating our relearning how to build nuclear in a competitive way. Those would be the best case scenarios.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Accelerating because it’s really kind of like, forcing people to innovate and act very quickly to do the kinds of things that they might otherwise do gradually over the course of 10, 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>And what drives down costs in many, many technologies is, increasing the scale of demand, basically increasing the size of the market. When you go from, here’s a technology we have thought of to one we have tested in the lab and demonstrated to one that we have done pilot projects of and works, there is this important phase between that and sort of a large scale deployment, which is increasing the scale of production enough that costs fall. And I totally believe it’s something we’ll get better at as we do it more.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think that’s a really, really interesting point. Like there is a world in which we can harness all of this demand and all of this excitement for AI and actually leave the climate in a better place than it would’ve otherwise been.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And I, you know, and I’m not saying this is guaranteed, I’m not saying that this is obviously what’s gonna happen, but it like, there is a path and it actually has the potential to accelerate you know, green energy and decarbonisation in ways it would be really positive for the climate. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[musical interlude]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>So, Meghan does see a future where demand for AI helps to accelerate deployment of low-cost green energy. But that’s not the only optimistic claim people make about AI and the climate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Okay. So I wanna do a kind of nerdy lightning round with you. So I’m gonna share some other ways that AI might impact the climate in a positive way. And, we’ll say zero is like, that is all just hand-wavy gobbledygook, and five is like, yeah, actually there could really be something there. Okay, you ready? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>Ready. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> ‘Optimization of the energy grid.’ \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I’ll give that a four.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: It’s pretty good.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I’ll give it a four because it is the sort of thing that AI can do. Right. There’s already predictive maintenance being done and AI being applied to in a lot of different, manufacturing and other kinds of things. That said, it’s actually not the most important thing, I think, in the optimization of our energy system. We just need way more transmission in way more places to accommodate renewables generated in places where we historically have not had electricity generation like the Southwest. And just greater supply and greater flexibility. So I’ll give it a four ’cause AI can do it, but it’s actually not the most important thing you could do if you wanted to improve the electricity transmission grid.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: That was very thorough.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>Not very lightning, but very thorough.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Very thorough. ‘Better climate modeling.’\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> There’s a sense in which I don’t know whether you really want AI climate models. In the sense that part of the trick about AI is that it’s a bit of a black box. Climate models are basically systems of equations. Systems of equations that capture relationships we know about heat and temperature and weather and ocean currents, and then how those translate into economic consequences. Part of the value of climate models is that we know what assumptions we have put in and we can alter those assumptions in ways that allow us to see if this were different, how would that matter for our climate predictions? I’m not sure that sort of turning that over to the more black box nature of AI is gonna improve our confidence. So I’ll give that a one.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> ‘Discovery of more energy efficient materials.’\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> That’s a great question. So there are absolutely applications in which materials matter – Battery chemistry, for example, is one that a lot of people are pushing on. So I’ll give that a three.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: ‘\u003c/strong>Precision agriculture’, which is this idea that with the right sensors and models, we could give crops exactly what they need when they need it, improving yield, reducing waste.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I’m gonna give that a one, not because I don’t think AI can do it, but because, doing it more efficiently or more precisely doesn’t do a lot for decarbonization if we’re using the same techniques, in terms of fertilizer, in terms of planting, in terms of those kinds of things. So I think in order to make a big difference in agricultural emissions, we’re gonna need something other than, sort of more precisely, implementing the technologies that we have. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>Ok, so Meghan doesn’t see a lot of potential in some of these super optimistic “AI will just create new things that help!” scenarios. But she does see the potential for AI to fuel a clean-energy tech boom. At least…in the future. But how can people like \u003cem>me\u003c/em> make a difference TODAY? SHOULD I feel guilty asking ChatGPT for that packing list?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So, one of the things, as I teach classes about climate, and as I talk to audiences about climate, I oftentimes get questions about, what can I do that matters?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I don’t think people always have a very good idea of what are the first order things, like what are the big levers they have in their hand, and what are the small levers that they have in their hand? If you ask me, I would tell you that generating a packing list on ChatGPT for your vacation is not a very big climate lever. In fact, it’s a much bigger climate lever how far away you are going on your vacation and how are you going to get there? If you’re taking an airplane, the climate impact of your airplane trip is many, many, many, many, many ChatGPT queries. So I think part of the reason people have fixated on ChatGPT queries as something that is part of their climate virtual signaling, is that it seems like an easy thing to do or not do as opposed to deciding not to drive to work or not to have a furnace in my house, or…\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> – not to go on vacation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Not to go on vacation. And so we sometimes get fixated on the things that seem like, well, that just seems like an excessive choice that you are making. But if you wanna know the things that really matter, the things that really matter have to do with your more direct use of fossil fuels. Think about how you set your thermostat. Think about what you drive and where you drive. Think about where you choose to fly. Think about what you eat – Beef is especially carbon intensive. So if people are asking me, what is a marginal choice I could make in my life that would make a difference, using ChatGPT would not be at the top of my list. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>Well, what about…joining some sort of collective action effort–like the protests we’re seeing against data centers? That strategy seems to have more potential, at least for those local issues. Because all data centers are not created equal, and being able to shape the kind of neighbor you have, and where it situates itself – that feels big.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Are communities able to get some concessions from these companies that allow the data centers to sort of be built, you know, somewhere in the proximity, but in ways that don’t impact people’s quality of life as much?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I think there’s actually a ton of heterogeneity as you go from place to place. I mean, it’s very different if you have something that is federally regulated, something like, you know, pharmaceuticals or those kinds of things, right? The process might be slow, but once a decision gets made for something that’s federally regulated, then that’s the decision, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And when you have something that, that it’s gonna be sort of a location and state by state, it’s just gonna be a lot noisier, it’s gonna be a lot less predictable, and I think that, what’s gonna turn out to be a successful strategy for communities to employ is gonna depend a lot on the particular location where they are.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>And perhaps what they want to get out of it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And perhaps what they wanna get out of it, which may not be the same place to place.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Yeah, I mean, could this be a good thing, where communities, you know, depending on the tools they have available to them, can sort of look at the situation and in a bespoke way try to come to an agreement that is going to be as much of a win-win as possible?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>I hope so.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[music bump]\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> It’s clear that local opposition to data centers can have an impact. Meghan sent me a newspaper article involving a powerful Utah State Senator. He served as chairman of the agency that approved that giant data center we talked about earlier, the one that was downsized to a mere 20,000 acres. And…he recently lost his Republican primary bid, in what the article called, “one of the most high-profile signs of the voter backlash to data center projects.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Which brings us to the final thing that individuals can do–something that works for these local issues and for the climate more broadly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> If you care about having an individual impact, by far the most impactful thing you can do is how you vote.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> There you go.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And that’s because so many of the changes you need are not about our individual consumption or our individual behavior. It’s about the \u003cem>systems\u003c/em> of how we generate energy. The systems of how we use energy, what we use energy for. The things that are really, really hard for individuals to influence with their choices. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So in some sense, I don’t care very much about whether you use ChatGPT, I don’t care very much about whether you eat beef or not. I don’t even care about where you fly on vacation as long as you vote. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So you teach the next generation of CEOs, C-Suite Executives, and you have children of your own. What advice do you have for young people right now?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> The advice that I have for young people now is that while it seems, like on the political front, it might seem like things are discouraging on the technology and economic front, there’s huge potential.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We can \u003cem>absolutely\u003c/em> decarbonize, we can \u003cem>absolutely\u003c/em> avoid the worst effects of climate change. We have many of the technologies and I totally believe that we can invent the technologies that we still need. It is absolutely within our power if we choose to do it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>So. In the long run, how will AI impact the climate? It depends. But after my conversation with Meghan, I’m thinking: it doesn’t depend that much on the AI itself. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It depends more on what we do with demand for the technology. Where and how companies build out their data centers and especially how they choose to power them. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Are we going to live in a world where demand pushes back our transition to clean energy, locking us into fossil fuels for decades? We’re seeing some of that world right now. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But we can also choose a world where this explosion of demand hastens our transition to clean energy. And we’re also seeing some of that right now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The politics of clean energy can look grim…But as long as clean-energy technologies keep getting cheaper and easier to scale, the optimistic scenario is still on the table.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is Life Automated, a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Distributed by KQED. I’m Jess Love. Special thanks to today’s guest, Meghan Busse, an economist and associate professor at the Kellogg School of Management.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We’re produced by Jesse Dukes. Music by Steven Jackson. Recording by George Christensen and Will Feeney. Support and wise counsel from Stacia Sliger. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>END\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Will AI actually take over every job ever? \u003ca href=\"https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/academics-research/faculty/jones_benjamin_f/\">Economist Ben Jones\u003c/a> doesn’t think so. Drawing from historical evidence around innovation, Jones argues that automation never conquers \u003cem>everything \u003c/em>— it inevitably creates operational bottlenecks that only humans can solve. By leaning into these bottlenecks, we can protect meaningful, well-paid work. But his optimism comes with a stark caveat: there is one nightmare scenario where this historical pattern breaks down entirely. And it doesn’t involve superintelligence. It involves mediocre AI.\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Further Reading: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ai-frontiers.org/articles/how-ai-could-benefit-the-workers-it-displaces\">How AI Could Benefit Workers, Even If It Displaces Most Jobs\u003c/a> — Benjamin Jones, \u003cem>AI Frontiers\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I’m Jess Love. This is Life Automated. For generations of Americans, the question was, where were you when JFK was shot? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Breaking news bulletin announcing the death of John F. Kennedy]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem> Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. You’ll excuse the fact that I’m out of breath, but about 10 or 15 minutes ago, a tragic thing from all indications at this point has happened to this city.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> When Neil Armstrong walked on the moon?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip of Neil Armstrong on the moon]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>That’s one small step for man, one giant- \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Or the towers fell on 9/11?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[News bulletin from September 11, 2001]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>There’s smoke \u003c/em>\u003cem>billowing out of the World Trade Center.\u003c/em>\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> These are moments seared into our collective psyche, and now we have a new moment, only this one arrived a bit differently, a browser at a time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Where were you when you first used ChatGPT?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is Life, Automated. I’m Jess Love, and I can tell you exactly where I was. The year was 2022, and I was visiting my in-laws in Florida. It was that lazy week between Christmas and New Year’s that I usually spend in a food coma. I sat on my sister-in-law’s childhood bed and signed up for a free subscription to ChatGPT.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I started asking the machine questions, easy ones at first. What did it know about butterflies native to Chicago or the most common tourist attractions in Italy? But it wasn’t too long before I asked what I really wanted to know. Could it do my job? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>See, much of the work I’ve done over the past decade is in science communication, essentially translating original research written by and for experts into something comprehensible to most people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, I asked ChatGPT to summarize some papers I was familiar with, and it did okay. But what it lacked in finesse, and especially in those earlier iterations, accurate citations, it more than made up for in sheer efficiency. In just seconds, it could do work that would take a human the better part of a day.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>If I didn’t like the first draft that was conjured, I could just tell it to try again from a different perspective now. Write it shorter. Write it longer. Write it for a fifth grader. Write it with sports metaphors. I was stunned. It seemed clear we were entering a new era of science communication where all the world’s knowledge was not only available, but personally customizable on demand.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>If you wanted a given study to be relayed in the style of Mr. Darcy flirting with Elizabeth Bennet, you were now suddenly in luck. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[AI-generated summary of Pride and Prejudice in style of research article]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Darcy’s mouth tightened in a way that suggested the accusation had landed, but he proceeded anyway. My dear Miss Bennet, said Mr. Darcy with an air of careful restraint, I have been reading “AIG in Hindsight.” It is an instructive account of how a firm may appear a paragon of prudence until one… \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> The thing I did to make my living that made me special, that made me employable, that I loved to do, was now available to anybody. How could I possibly compete? What did all of my expertise even mean anymore?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the more I thought about ChatGPT, and the more its implications for a lot of other professions became clear, the more I started wondering about all of us. I have a seven-year-old daughter. What opportunities are gonna be available to her? I’m not alone here. The majority of Americans feel pretty anxious about AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it’s not just jobs. Public polling data suggests Americans are really concerned about how AI will affect education, democracy, our environment, our information ecosystem, and just how we relate to each other. But even as I share all these concerns, I gotta say, over time, a big part of me did start rooting for this technology.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Partly, this is because I now work at a research institute, the Ryan Institute on Complexity. I use AI tools every day, and so do the people around me. I see firsthand how useful they can be. But there’s a bigger reason. I have another daughter, an 11-year-old. She was born with a rare neurological disorder, so rare that it doesn’t actually have a name.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You can currently count the number of people in the world with her specific genetic mutation on two fingers. And this genetic difference, it affects how she talks, how she moves, how she uses objects like forks and scissors, how she thinks and learns. My daughter lives in a world that wasn’t made for her, with a brain that science doesn’t really understand.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, technology that can harness the world’s cumulative knowledge in order to make her life a little easier sounds pretty incredible. AI that can predict which medications might be useful or offer step-by-step directions on how to operate household appliances, and then wait for her to finish each step.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of AI Microwave]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>First, press the button above the handle and open the door. Your food will go inside that box when it’s ready. Now close the door. Did it click? \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Or AI that can adapt educational materials to her specifically, on demand, maybe in the voice of her favorite Moana character. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Maui from Moana]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>You’re welcome. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Sign me up. So yeah, that’s me. One person, one employee, one parent, reckoning with this technology. But of course, it isn’t just me. There are millions, billions of us wondering what AI and other kinds of automation really mean for our lives and our businesses and our communities, and what we should be doing to prepare. If you are one of these people, I’d like to invite you on a journey.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Because nobody can predict the future, nobody has all the answers about where we’re headed, but there are a lot of people with some answers, and I’ll be speaking with them on Life, Automated, a new podcast from Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, distributed by KQED. I’ll talk with scientists and philosophers, business leaders and engineers and artists, all with unique insights into the world we’re collectively building.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m not gonna try to freak you out. I’m not gonna try to sell you anything. I am gonna get nerdy. I’m gonna try to understand, as best I can, where we’re headed. And you’re invited.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Shortly after I had my initial ChatGPT moment several years ago, I tracked down Ben Jones. He’s an economist and a co-director here at the Ryan Institute where he studies economic development, innovation, entrepreneurship, and the scientific process. And it turns out, Ben has been paying attention to new developments in generative AI for much longer than me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>When we talked three and a half years ago, I was kind of at peak anxiety; but Ben, he’d had a head start. Speaking with him helped me feel better about where we were headed, in part because he gave me a helpful way of thinking about AI. So, I wanted to bring him back for another conversation, this time in a recording studio. I started off by getting him talking about the first moment he realized AI had the potential to bring about big changes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Did you have an AI moment, kind of a single moment that sort of shook you to the core and made you think, wow, something about these newest models is really fundamentally different? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> I did. I’ve had several AI moments along the way. I think many people, you know, when you see what AI can do, it’s uncanny.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Sometimes the hair stands up on the back of my neck. But my first AI moment where the hair stood up on the back of my neck was in 2017, and I was in Toronto for a conference that mixed economists and technologists, people from Geoff Hinton’s lab, who would go on to lead many of the top AI groups at the top companies.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And we were shown over dinner, it was a very nice dinner, a video. The video was of an AI learning how to play a first-person shooter game. And as you may know, with first-person shooter games, the experience is if you’re looking through the eyes of the player. So, we’re sort of looking through the eyes of the AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And without any particular directives, except to sort of survive as long as possible, the AI was training itself to play this game better and better. And at first, you’re sitting there looking through the AI’s eyes, and you’re kind of like a drunken sailor. You’re, like, stumbling around, you’re banging into walls, you’re getting trapped in corners.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You never pick up health or a weapon. You just don’t last very long. The video showed us the AI’s progression kind of in a fast-forward, high speed over maybe 24 hours. And so around the middle of the training, over, maybe 12 hours, it started running around the maze extremely effectively, but it wasn’t always picking up things on the floor, and it was no longer falling off bridges.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>By the end of the day, it was not only picking everything up and firing the weapons accurately, it was killing every single person in the game, all the real players. It didn’t miss. It didn’t miss in any way. And just watching this progression from this AI algorithm was a really uncanny moment, and to me, opened my mind to how powerful but also potentially worrisome AI is.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think, you know, on some level it’s not that surprising that a computer can learn to master a computer game. But what makes this story so incredible is just that the computer had no instructions that told us what it was supposed to be doing or what it was supposed to be optimizing other than just, like, live.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it was able to just learn all of those techniques just via trial and error. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Right. Just the certain algorithms for training AI with fairly simple objectives lead to this incredible set of capabilities, which are truly uncanny. Many people have probably had that first moment now with AI, I think a lot with ChatGPT, where you ask it a question and you can’t believe the answer.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You’re like, “How could it possibly be coming up with this?” And AI absolutely has that quality. So, for me, it kind of happened a bit earlier, and so I started writing about it a bit earlier than most because I’d had that experience a bit earlier than most. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, which was very convenient for me personally because it meant that, when I was still in my AI freak-out phase, you were somebody who had been doing research on this for years, and were able to kind of be this, calming presence, in order to give me some concrete information about this technology.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, you have kind of an interesting perspective, which is that AI, the current generative AI that we’re talking about with ChatGPT, it’s really just part of a long process of automation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And it’s true that certain technologies for a long time, and AI is one of them, are just hands down amazing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They do things that are just amazing. But that doesn’t mean that they disemploy everybody.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Phew.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And, how can those two things be true? Well, let me just give you another example. You know, obviously computers have been around for a long time now, and their capacity to do sort of certain kinds of calculations are just, more or less infinitely, virtually infinitely better than humans.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, in my field and in many research fields, you use data and statistical regressions. If I were to run a regression by hand, with a large number of observations, it would take me literally my entire life. And I would make mistakes. You know, my computer can do a regression with a million data points in a minute.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, we have these technologies that basically are infinitely better than us to do these tasks that are really important to what we do. And then you can ask, okay, well, has our understanding of economics or astronomy or physics multiplied by a similar factor? And you’d say no, because although we can do certain things really, really, really incredibly well, other things are holding us back.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But that doesn’t mean that you don’t have these other tasks, which I would call bottlenecks.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay, and this is the thing that I have thought about so often since our conversation. It kind of blew my mind. So, can you talk to us about what a bottleneck is and why it’s so important?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Well, of course, it’s a metaphor from a bottle, and what do we know about bottles? We know that the speed at which water or wine will flow from the bottle depends on the width of the neck. Doesn’t really depend on how big the bottle is otherwise, how much wine there is in it, how big the base is. It really just depends on the neck.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And in many processes in the economy and in the economy overall, it looks like there are certain things that have to happen that act as bottlenecks. Let’s say you’re going out to see your cousins for Thanksgiving dinner, and you’ve gotta get everyone in your house into the car, and you’ve gotta pack up the pies that you’re bringing and contributing to the festivities.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Well, everyone in the house could have gotten up early, gotten dressed, put on their Thanksgiving sweaters, gotten the pies into the car. But you’re not leaving the house until everyone has their shoes on and their socks. And maybe there’s someone in the family who just is getting real slow about getting their socks and their shoes on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>How fast is it that you leave the house? It doesn’t really depend on how fast everyone is. It depends on how slow the slowest person is. That person becomes a bottleneck. Maybe an example we can all relate to. Much of the economy has that flavor, where it’s not how good you are at a lot of things. What’s really sort of determining the rate of the economy is the things we’re quite slow at, the things we’re not very good at.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So basically, it’s this task that is slowing down the speed with which the entire overall goal or objective can be met. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And the reason that’s important is because often in innovation, we get really focused on the shiny thing that’s going really fast, and we’re really excited about how fast it can compute things and these kinds of new technologies.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But often what really matters is the thing we’re not looking at. It’s the things that we’re quite bad at. The things that we’re really bad at are actually going to slow down the whole system, and if we can’t improve those, the gains from these kind of shiny new objects and new technologies won’t be as great as we hope.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I thought about these bottlenecks a lot after our initial conversation. Like, whenever I heard a tech leader say AI was going to be ready to colonize the galaxy in five years, or whenever I started spiraling about whether AI was going to take over every job ever. Now, about that. Overall, Ben, like many economists, is bullish on AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>He says that automation is generally good for workers. Sure, it causes some job loss and dislocation in the short term. But in the long term, it raises the quality of life for everybody, in part because it lowers the price of things we need and want. But that doesn’t mean people don’t get harmed along the way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> So, one of the fears people have is that these automation technologies take jobs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And of course, this goes back to the early years of the Industrial Revolution and the Luddites. You know, when you have handcrafts people who are silversmiths and blacksmiths, and you’re making clothes by hand, and then suddenly you have, say, the loom, you’re going to put out of work a lot of hand clothes makers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But they’re going to migrate into other jobs, right? Over the long run, we’re going to see people do many other things, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Think about the real economy. Think about farming. I don’t know if anyone in the audience has ever had a chance to ride around in a combine harvester.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But, that’s one of the most incredible pieces of machinery you can imagine. I think a single combine harvester with a bunch of trucks driving up and around it, was able to harvest something like four or five million pounds of corn in twelve hours. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s insane. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Right? And certainly, agricultural technology is one of those areas where we’ve had massive productivity growth.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We have better seeds and irrigation systems. We have a lot more knowledge. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Fertilizer. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones: \u003c/strong>Fertilizers… All sorts of pesticides, depending how you feel about that. And those together have made for very high productivity, meaning, one hour of labor working with those machines can produce an enormous amount of food.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the end result of that is that instead of having half our workforce in the US, you know, be in agriculture- \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And that’s what it would have been, like- two hundred years ago.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And that’s what it is in many very low-income countries today, which still struggle to put in place even more basic agricultural technologies.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, if fifty percent of the American workforce was in agriculture, now it’s, say, two percent of the American workforce working with an enormous amount of machines. But of course, that’s why many people have gone on to find other careers in other parts of the country. And overall, that process, while it’s not incidental, it can be quite painful. This process of what we call creative destruction, in the long run is what allows us to be far more productive, have higher standards of living.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Coming up, Ben Jones explains why he wants AI to be really good at every job it automates, and why the bigger risk is mediocre AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I do want to point out a very important difference that I think a lot of people are feeling, which is that what is happening with artificial intelligence right now, it’s that the most desirable jobs seem to be the ones that are most at risk. So, I don’t think many people grow up and think, “Boy, I really want to spend all day turning a knob again and again and again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But a lot of people really do want to do things like animate, or people want to become journalists. People are accepting giant salary reductions already, to position themselves in these fields. And it seems like those jobs are also at risk. So, there does almost seem to be an emotional difference with the jobs that are being lost right now, that puts kids growing up today in a really hard spot in terms of, follow your dreams.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Well, so, I mean, this is a bit too soon to tell, I think. But, you’re right that if you think of a job as not a task, but a bundle of tasks, that doesn’t mean that you don’t like some of the tasks more than others. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> If you’re a chef, I presume you think about the menu and, and some of the cooking is more fun than washing the dishes, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, that’s exactly right.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Maybe I’m wrong. And I don’t think people are the same. So, I think people have different preferences, even in the same job, about different kinds of tasks that they have to do. But to the extent that, you know, AI replaces, it’s just lower cost for how good it is at the tasks that you like, I think that’s not gonna feel so great.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, what if it’s really good at creativity and then all you’re doing is editing? But you’d rather do the creative part. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Exactly. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> But on the other hand, you know, it’s also the case that when you bring in… Like, let’s go back to regressions. I like to do statistical analysis. I think it’s really interesting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I’m mostly interested in the output. I have no interest in the calculation, and it’s boring. So, this makes me get to the interesting part much faster. And maybe when you’re writing, it’s a collaborator, right? I mean, maybe it’s not a replacement. It’s like another voice on your team.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And suddenly you’re getting a higher quality product, and it could be that you’re making a screenplay or writing an article, you’re writing a song, and suddenly it’s better for your collaboration with the AI, but they’re not actually taking kind of full control. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s the optimistic version here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That at least for a lot of jobs, some tasks will be automated, but other tasks won’t. And those tasks, those bottlenecks, will keep us humans busy and employed and maybe even fulfilled. And looking for these bottlenecks in our own jobs or industries, that is something that feels actionable. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Naturally, if there’s some bottleneck tasks that are slowing up the whole system, those are gonna have a lot of value.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>If you can continue to do those or do them relatively well, people will value that. You’ll get a lot of income, you’ll get a sustained job, based on those kinds of tasks. So, the question I think is, are there tasks that are bottleneck tasks that computers can’t do very well yet? That’s really where you should focus.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And in Ben’s view, assuming there will always be some role for humans, we should actually be rooting for AI to get really, really good at whatever it automates. To understand why, we first need to understand two opposing forces. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> So, the first is automation. Automation would be when a machine starts doing a task that we used to do as labor, humans.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think this is the force that a lot of people think of. They think about, okay, this machine can do more and more and more work, and so there’s obviously going to be just, like, less and less and less of the income or the share of the economy that’s going to be available to us non-machines.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. That’s the sort of obvious force that most people get. But there’s another force which is a little bit more subtle, and it has to do with the fact that if machines are taking over tasks, and they are really good at those tasks, right… And at some level they have to be good at those tasks, otherwise they wouldn’t be taking them over from labor.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But if they get very, very good at those tasks, then what happens is those tasks become very cheap, in the sense that whenever you flood a market with something, right? If I made anything abundant, its price will fall. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so what’s gonna happen if machines are really, really good at those tasks is the kinds of services they produce will become very inexpensive.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, what we really want if AI is gonna take over a lot of tasks, it’s very important that it not just slightly beat labor at those tasks. We want AI, if it’s gonna take over those tasks, to be really great at it, because then we’re gonna have an abundance of that output, and actually the prices fall and people end up being much better off in a real income sense.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, I was trying to come up with an example, and instead of it being, quite as theoretical, I was trying to think of something that maybe is already happening in the economy today so that we could sort of play out this idea, this thought experiment, and really understand why even us mere laborers really ought to be working, rooting for AI to get quite good at the tasks of ours that it takes over.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, I’m gonna read an example to you, and I am hoping that you can respond to it. Give me a sense of whether this is correct, and if so, what it means. If not, where I went wrong. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>‘Imagine that companies start replacing customer service professionals at call centers with AI. This is something that we already know is happening, like when you call your health insurance company to ask about coverage, or you ask your bank why a deposit hasn’t gone through, what have you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The person you talk to gets automated. They’re replaced by AI, and even if the AI isn’t cheap, they still cost a lot less than paying the salaries of fluent English speakers trained in customer service. So, one scenario is the AI is just ‘okay’ at this. It provides worse customer service than humans. People don’t always get their problems resolved.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Maybe they get frustrated, maybe they even get angry at the company. But the AI is still good enough that even though the company’s reputation might suffer a bit, the money they’re saving kind of makes it worth it. Maybe they come out a bit ahead. And this is your nightmare scenario as I understand it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, all these call center jobs get eliminated. Nobody really benefits except for the companies that might save a little money every year. Is that a fair depiction of the nightmare scenario?’\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Yes, because if the companies are only just saving a little bit of money, that’s a sign that the computers aren’t that much better at the task.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We get bad services. People lose their jobs. That’s an accurate version of the kind of nightmare scenario one would have in mind. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. Now, if the AI is really, really good at customer service, then eventually most of us do benefit. So, some people do lose their jobs, but they are able to move into others.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And meanwhile, the rest of us get our questions answered really quickly, really easily. We have more time in our day to do other things, and hopefully the products and the services from that company become less expensive because the firm is able to pass along those savings. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And as long as those workers who are displaced are able to find other kinds of jobs in this new economy, everyone’s income will eventually, be going up.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, if I want to go back to this farming example, it’s very easy for me to see that, you know, in the last two hundred years, let’s say, since half of America was a farmer, it’s very easy for me to see that life is a lot better now. You’re gonna live if you are born — you stand a much higher likelihood, you’re just going to enjoy a lot of things that our ancestors would not have been able to. But I think right now, a lot of people are feeling like life in general is not getting better. They’re kind of feeling like, the chances that my kid is going to have a better life than me are not that great.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, houses are getting more expensive. It’s more expensive to go to college. Like, I think a lot of people are feeling like they are just treading water. And so how does that square with this idea of incremental progress? Is it just that we are imagining the past to be better than it was? Or is it that maybe some of the things that are real pain points are because of these bottlenecks or something else?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> I would say that’s more to do with inequality, and where the benefits have been felt in this economy. And this goes way before artificial intelligence. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Going back to the ’70s for quite a long time, the median real household income was kind of stagnating in the United States.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, we had a lot of growth, but as I think people know, a lot of that increased value added in the economy every year has been captured by people who are pretty well off already. One of the concerns with AI, as we see, these billionaires, trillionaires starting to emerge, is that too much of the added value will be captured by those who own the companies or own the capital. So, I think that’s a real question. The other kind of inequality, which is actually the major kind of inequality that’s been at work in the United States, is within labor. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And what we’ve seen over time since the ’70s is a spreading where people who are in the upper educated professional classes have been capturing a lot of the growth, in income per capita\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>for themselves. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh, interesting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones: \u003c/strong>Whereas the median household has been struggling. Compared to history, we’ve seen relatively slow growth in real standards of living among the median household. I think when you think about why, Americans maybe not necessarily fully seeing these facts, but feeling them right? Feeling that maybe they put it on globalization, but that’s maybe not the right… But there’s some globalization, there’s a lot of automation, there’s a lot of technological change within the country. But feeling that somehow, these advances or this participation in the world economy, doesn’t seem like it’s making their lives better. And I think for many people, at least going back to the ’70s, there’s some truth in that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> In Ben’s view, much of the pessimism Americans feel about technological progress comes not from the technology itself but from how its gains have been distributed. But he thinks that at least some of this inequality, not the kind driven by tech billionaires, but the inequality within workers might actually decrease as AI automates white collar work. And to be very blunt, he does not share the average American’s concerns about AI making human labor obsolete.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So, I mean, a stat I ran across earlier this year, just 6% of Americans say workplace AI use will lead to more jobs in the long run, and you would just wholeheartedly disagree with that and say that, this might just be kind of a failure of imagination.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. I mean, you wouldn’t have imagined there was an ATM technician or a satellite engineer or a pilot before those things were created. And, I think it’s very hard to predict what’s gonna become easier, what’s gonna become hard, and that’s for the future to tell us. It’s gonna be unexpected and pretty interesting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But there’s nothing so far in history that would suggest that suddenly all labor could be replaced. And even if it were, I mean, just to be clear, I mean, if it were, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, let’s go there! \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Then the amount of output would be enormous, right? So, if you actually replaced all human labor and you had these efficient machines that could do everything, the amount of consumption you could have would be incredibly high. It would at that point become entirely an issue of equity and access to that income. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And, you know, that’s where governments can step in, right? And we can have redistributive policies. I mean, do you wanna just let a few capitalists own everything? I doubt that is a political equilibrium- with everyone starving and, like, three people are, you know, quadrillionaires. Maybe, this gets into dystopian scenarios —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, it does\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And it gets into various other things. And I’m not saying that’s not possible. We certainly see authoritarian behavior around the world that is problematic. It’s ultimately a question of our political process and the representation of voices who are being left out, or doing much worse because of technological change.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And, you know, if you’re making the pie much bigger through this kind of churn and technological advance, there’s more resources around. You should be able to compensate those who lost in some way and not have them live a life that is much harder for virtue of having been replaced by machines.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think, you know, in the United States, you have to be careful in both directions. Technological progress is inevitably about creative destruction, right? I mean, think of what Amazon has done, right? E-tail destroyed bricks-and-mortar bookstores first and a whole lot of other kinds of bricks and mortar, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But it is more efficient for a lot of people. Consumers like it. They get things delivered. It’s cheaper. You know, they get things faster. But if you owned a bookstore, it was terrible, right? And, so, how do we think about that as a society? Well, on one hand, if we let the people who are already kind of in charge resist creative destruction, then we don’t grow and we don’t advance, and then those people are kind of holding us back, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>On the other hand, if you just let creative destruction go with no kind of willy-nilly, with no compensation, which is pretty close to the American model, right? You got a lotta progress. You got a lotta churn. You get a lotta technological advance, but you’re gonna displace a lotta people. And so, at that point, you definitely need a very, at minimum, a very flexible labor market which allows people to reallocate into other jobs, and there are ways to have policy to facilitate that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Retraining, et cetera. But that’s not to sugarcoat anything here. I mean, if you’re in a rural area and the main employer goes down, reallocating to a new job probably means reallocating to a new place, leaving your family, leaving the region you know and all the culture that goes with that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s an extraordinarily painful experience. And whether that’s because of technological change or trade, you know, I think it’s on all of us and as citizens in a country to take that extremely seriously.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I think this question of how we as a society deploy and adapt to automation is one of the most important questions today. But before we can adapt, we need to understand. That’s what this show is trying to do, help more people, including me, make sense of things. So we have a lot more great conversations coming up with economists, scientists, experts in design and media, people whose work can help us understand this moment and maybe even peek into the future.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love. Life, Automated is a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. We’re distributed by KQED. Our show is produced by Jesse Dukes with help from Nathan Ray and Steven Jackson. Music by Steven Jackson, Q Shop, and Neutral Propulsion Laboratory.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recording help from Will Feeney and George Christensen. Administrative support, recording, and wise counsel from Stacia Sliger.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Will AI actually take over every job ever? \u003ca href=\"https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/academics-research/faculty/jones_benjamin_f/\">Economist Ben Jones\u003c/a> doesn’t think so. Drawing from historical evidence around innovation, Jones argues that automation never conquers \u003cem>everything \u003c/em>— it inevitably creates operational bottlenecks that only humans can solve. By leaning into these bottlenecks, we can protect meaningful, well-paid work. But his optimism comes with a stark caveat: there is one nightmare scenario where this historical pattern breaks down entirely. And it doesn’t involve superintelligence. It involves mediocre AI.\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I’m Jess Love. This is Life Automated. For generations of Americans, the question was, where were you when JFK was shot? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I’m Jess Love. This is Life Automated. For generations of Americans, the question was, where were you when JFK was shot? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem> Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. You’ll excuse the fact that I’m out of breath, but about 10 or 15 minutes ago, a tragic thing from all indications at this point has happened to this city.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem> Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. You’ll excuse the fact that I’m out of breath, but about 10 or 15 minutes ago, a tragic thing from all indications at this point has happened to this city.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> When Neil Armstrong walked on the moon?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>There’s smoke \u003c/em>\u003cem>billowing out of the World Trade Center.\u003c/em>\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>There’s smoke \u003c/em>\u003cem>billowing out of the World Trade Center.\u003c/em>\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> These are moments seared into our collective psyche, and now we have a new moment, only this one arrived a bit differently, a browser at a time.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This is Life, Automated. I’m Jess Love, and I can tell you exactly where I was. The year was 2022, and I was visiting my in-laws in Florida. It was that lazy week between Christmas and New Year’s that I usually spend in a food coma. I sat on my sister-in-law’s childhood bed and signed up for a free subscription to ChatGPT.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I started asking the machine questions, easy ones at first. What did it know about butterflies native to Chicago or the most common tourist attractions in Italy? But it wasn’t too long before I asked what I really wanted to know. Could it do my job? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I started asking the machine questions, easy ones at first. What did it know about butterflies native to Chicago or the most common tourist attractions in Italy? But it wasn’t too long before I asked what I really wanted to know. Could it do my job? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>See, much of the work I’ve done over the past decade is in science communication, essentially translating original research written by and for experts into something comprehensible to most people.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, I asked ChatGPT to summarize some papers I was familiar with, and it did okay. But what it lacked in finesse, and especially in those earlier iterations, accurate citations, it more than made up for in sheer efficiency. In just seconds, it could do work that would take a human the better part of a day.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Darcy’s mouth tightened in a way that suggested the accusation had landed, but he proceeded anyway. My dear Miss Bennet, said Mr. Darcy with an air of careful restraint, I have been reading “AIG in Hindsight.” It is an instructive account of how a firm may appear a paragon of prudence until one… \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> The thing I did to make my living that made me special, that made me employable, that I loved to do, was now available to anybody. How could I possibly compete? What did all of my expertise even mean anymore?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And the more I thought about ChatGPT, and the more its implications for a lot of other professions became clear, the more I started wondering about all of us. I have a seven-year-old daughter. What opportunities are gonna be available to her? I’m not alone here. The majority of Americans feel pretty anxious about AI.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And the more I thought about ChatGPT, and the more its implications for a lot of other professions became clear, the more I started wondering about all of us. I have a seven-year-old daughter. What opportunities are gonna be available to her? I’m not alone here. The majority of Americans feel pretty anxious about AI.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And it’s not just jobs. Public polling data suggests Americans are really concerned about how AI will affect education, democracy, our environment, our information ecosystem, and just how we relate to each other. But even as I share all these concerns, I gotta say, over time, a big part of me did start rooting for this technology.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And it’s not just jobs. Public polling data suggests Americans are really concerned about how AI will affect education, democracy, our environment, our information ecosystem, and just how we relate to each other. But even as I share all these concerns, I gotta say, over time, a big part of me did start rooting for this technology.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Partly, this is because I now work at a research institute, the Ryan Institute on Complexity. I use AI tools every day, and so do the people around me. I see firsthand how useful they can be. But there’s a bigger reason. I have another daughter, an 11-year-old. She was born with a rare neurological disorder, so rare that it doesn’t actually have a name.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Partly, this is because I now work at a research institute, the Ryan Institute on Complexity. I use AI tools every day, and so do the people around me. I see firsthand how useful they can be. But there’s a bigger reason. I have another daughter, an 11-year-old. She was born with a rare neurological disorder, so rare that it doesn’t actually have a name.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You can currently count the number of people in the world with her specific genetic mutation on two fingers. And this genetic difference, it affects how she talks, how she moves, how she uses objects like forks and scissors, how she thinks and learns. My daughter lives in a world that wasn’t made for her, with a brain that science doesn’t really understand.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You can currently count the number of people in the world with her specific genetic mutation on two fingers. And this genetic difference, it affects how she talks, how she moves, how she uses objects like forks and scissors, how she thinks and learns. My daughter lives in a world that wasn’t made for her, with a brain that science doesn’t really understand.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, technology that can harness the world’s cumulative knowledge in order to make her life a little easier sounds pretty incredible. AI that can predict which medications might be useful or offer step-by-step directions on how to operate household appliances, and then wait for her to finish each step.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, technology that can harness the world’s cumulative knowledge in order to make her life a little easier sounds pretty incredible. AI that can predict which medications might be useful or offer step-by-step directions on how to operate household appliances, and then wait for her to finish each step.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>First, press the button above the handle and open the door. Your food will go inside that box when it’s ready. Now close the door. Did it click? \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>First, press the button above the handle and open the door. Your food will go inside that box when it’s ready. Now close the door. Did it click? \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Or AI that can adapt educational materials to her specifically, on demand, maybe in the voice of her favorite Moana character. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Maui from Moana]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>You’re welcome. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>You’re welcome. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Sign me up. So yeah, that’s me. One person, one employee, one parent, reckoning with this technology. But of course, it isn’t just me. There are millions, billions of us wondering what AI and other kinds of automation really mean for our lives and our businesses and our communities, and what we should be doing to prepare. If you are one of these people, I’d like to invite you on a journey.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Sign me up. So yeah, that’s me. One person, one employee, one parent, reckoning with this technology. But of course, it isn’t just me. There are millions, billions of us wondering what AI and other kinds of automation really mean for our lives and our businesses and our communities, and what we should be doing to prepare. If you are one of these people, I’d like to invite you on a journey.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Because nobody can predict the future, nobody has all the answers about where we’re headed, but there are a lot of people with some answers, and I’ll be speaking with them on Life, Automated, a new podcast from Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, distributed by KQED. I’ll talk with scientists and philosophers, business leaders and engineers and artists, all with unique insights into the world we’re collectively building.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Because nobody can predict the future, nobody has all the answers about where we’re headed, but there are a lot of people with some answers, and I’ll be speaking with them on Life, Automated, a new podcast from Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, distributed by KQED. I’ll talk with scientists and philosophers, business leaders and engineers and artists, all with unique insights into the world we’re collectively building.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m not gonna try to freak you out. I’m not gonna try to sell you anything. I am gonna get nerdy. I’m gonna try to understand, as best I can, where we’re headed. And you’re invited.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I’m not gonna try to freak you out. I’m not gonna try to sell you anything. I am gonna get nerdy. I’m gonna try to understand, as best I can, where we’re headed. And you’re invited.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Shortly after I had my initial ChatGPT moment several years ago, I tracked down Ben Jones. He’s an economist and a co-director here at the Ryan Institute where he studies economic development, innovation, entrepreneurship, and the scientific process. And it turns out, Ben has been paying attention to new developments in generative AI for much longer than me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>When we talked three and a half years ago, I was kind of at peak anxiety; but Ben, he’d had a head start. Speaking with him helped me feel better about where we were headed, in part because he gave me a helpful way of thinking about AI. So, I wanted to bring him back for another conversation, this time in a recording studio. I started off by getting him talking about the first moment he realized AI had the potential to bring about big changes.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>When we talked three and a half years ago, I was kind of at peak anxiety; but Ben, he’d had a head start. Speaking with him helped me feel better about where we were headed, in part because he gave me a helpful way of thinking about AI. So, I wanted to bring him back for another conversation, this time in a recording studio. I started off by getting him talking about the first moment he realized AI had the potential to bring about big changes.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Did you have an AI moment, kind of a single moment that sort of shook you to the core and made you think, wow, something about these newest models is really fundamentally different? \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> I did. I’ve had several AI moments along the way. I think many people, you know, when you see what AI can do, it’s uncanny.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> I did. I’ve had several AI moments along the way. I think many people, you know, when you see what AI can do, it’s uncanny.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Sometimes the hair stands up on the back of my neck. But my first AI moment where the hair stood up on the back of my neck was in 2017, and I was in Toronto for a conference that mixed economists and technologists, people from Geoff Hinton’s lab, who would go on to lead many of the top AI groups at the top companies.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Sometimes the hair stands up on the back of my neck. But my first AI moment where the hair stood up on the back of my neck was in 2017, and I was in Toronto for a conference that mixed economists and technologists, people from Geoff Hinton’s lab, who would go on to lead many of the top AI groups at the top companies.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And we were shown over dinner, it was a very nice dinner, a video. The video was of an AI learning how to play a first-person shooter game. And as you may know, with first-person shooter games, the experience is if you’re looking through the eyes of the player. So, we’re sort of looking through the eyes of the AI.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And we were shown over dinner, it was a very nice dinner, a video. The video was of an AI learning how to play a first-person shooter game. And as you may know, with first-person shooter games, the experience is if you’re looking through the eyes of the player. So, we’re sort of looking through the eyes of the AI.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And without any particular directives, except to sort of survive as long as possible, the AI was training itself to play this game better and better. And at first, you’re sitting there looking through the AI’s eyes, and you’re kind of like a drunken sailor. You’re, like, stumbling around, you’re banging into walls, you’re getting trapped in corners.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And without any particular directives, except to sort of survive as long as possible, the AI was training itself to play this game better and better. And at first, you’re sitting there looking through the AI’s eyes, and you’re kind of like a drunken sailor. You’re, like, stumbling around, you’re banging into walls, you’re getting trapped in corners.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You never pick up health or a weapon. You just don’t last very long. The video showed us the AI’s progression kind of in a fast-forward, high speed over maybe 24 hours. And so around the middle of the training, over, maybe 12 hours, it started running around the maze extremely effectively, but it wasn’t always picking up things on the floor, and it was no longer falling off bridges.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You never pick up health or a weapon. You just don’t last very long. The video showed us the AI’s progression kind of in a fast-forward, high speed over maybe 24 hours. And so around the middle of the training, over, maybe 12 hours, it started running around the maze extremely effectively, but it wasn’t always picking up things on the floor, and it was no longer falling off bridges.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>By the end of the day, it was not only picking everything up and firing the weapons accurately, it was killing every single person in the game, all the real players. It didn’t miss. It didn’t miss in any way. And just watching this progression from this AI algorithm was a really uncanny moment, and to me, opened my mind to how powerful but also potentially worrisome AI is.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>By the end of the day, it was not only picking everything up and firing the weapons accurately, it was killing every single person in the game, all the real players. It didn’t miss. It didn’t miss in any way. And just watching this progression from this AI algorithm was a really uncanny moment, and to me, opened my mind to how powerful but also potentially worrisome AI is.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think, you know, on some level it’s not that surprising that a computer can learn to master a computer game. But what makes this story so incredible is just that the computer had no instructions that told us what it was supposed to be doing or what it was supposed to be optimizing other than just, like, live.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think, you know, on some level it’s not that surprising that a computer can learn to master a computer game. But what makes this story so incredible is just that the computer had no instructions that told us what it was supposed to be doing or what it was supposed to be optimizing other than just, like, live.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And it was able to just learn all of those techniques just via trial and error. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And it was able to just learn all of those techniques just via trial and error. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Right. Just the certain algorithms for training AI with fairly simple objectives lead to this incredible set of capabilities, which are truly uncanny. Many people have probably had that first moment now with AI, I think a lot with ChatGPT, where you ask it a question and you can’t believe the answer.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Right. Just the certain algorithms for training AI with fairly simple objectives lead to this incredible set of capabilities, which are truly uncanny. Many people have probably had that first moment now with AI, I think a lot with ChatGPT, where you ask it a question and you can’t believe the answer.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You’re like, “How could it possibly be coming up with this?” And AI absolutely has that quality. So, for me, it kind of happened a bit earlier, and so I started writing about it a bit earlier than most because I’d had that experience a bit earlier than most. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You’re like, “How could it possibly be coming up with this?” And AI absolutely has that quality. So, for me, it kind of happened a bit earlier, and so I started writing about it a bit earlier than most because I’d had that experience a bit earlier than most. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, which was very convenient for me personally because it meant that, when I was still in my AI freak-out phase, you were somebody who had been doing research on this for years, and were able to kind of be this, calming presence, in order to give me some concrete information about this technology.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, which was very convenient for me personally because it meant that, when I was still in my AI freak-out phase, you were somebody who had been doing research on this for years, and were able to kind of be this, calming presence, in order to give me some concrete information about this technology.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, you have kind of an interesting perspective, which is that AI, the current generative AI that we’re talking about with ChatGPT, it’s really just part of a long process of automation. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, you have kind of an interesting perspective, which is that AI, the current generative AI that we’re talking about with ChatGPT, it’s really just part of a long process of automation. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And it’s true that certain technologies for a long time, and AI is one of them, are just hands down amazing.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And it’s true that certain technologies for a long time, and AI is one of them, are just hands down amazing.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>They do things that are just amazing. But that doesn’t mean that they disemploy everybody.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>They do things that are just amazing. But that doesn’t mean that they disemploy everybody.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Phew.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And, how can those two things be true? Well, let me just give you another example. You know, obviously computers have been around for a long time now, and their capacity to do sort of certain kinds of calculations are just, more or less infinitely, virtually infinitely better than humans.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And, how can those two things be true? Well, let me just give you another example. You know, obviously computers have been around for a long time now, and their capacity to do sort of certain kinds of calculations are just, more or less infinitely, virtually infinitely better than humans.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, in my field and in many research fields, you use data and statistical regressions. If I were to run a regression by hand, with a large number of observations, it would take me literally my entire life. And I would make mistakes. You know, my computer can do a regression with a million data points in a minute.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, in my field and in many research fields, you use data and statistical regressions. If I were to run a regression by hand, with a large number of observations, it would take me literally my entire life. And I would make mistakes. You know, my computer can do a regression with a million data points in a minute.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so, we have these technologies that basically are infinitely better than us to do these tasks that are really important to what we do. And then you can ask, okay, well, has our understanding of economics or astronomy or physics multiplied by a similar factor? And you’d say no, because although we can do certain things really, really, really incredibly well, other things are holding us back.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so, we have these technologies that basically are infinitely better than us to do these tasks that are really important to what we do. And then you can ask, okay, well, has our understanding of economics or astronomy or physics multiplied by a similar factor? And you’d say no, because although we can do certain things really, really, really incredibly well, other things are holding us back.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But that doesn’t mean that you don’t have these other tasks, which I would call bottlenecks.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But that doesn’t mean that you don’t have these other tasks, which I would call bottlenecks.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay, and this is the thing that I have thought about so often since our conversation. It kind of blew my mind. So, can you talk to us about what a bottleneck is and why it’s so important?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay, and this is the thing that I have thought about so often since our conversation. It kind of blew my mind. So, can you talk to us about what a bottleneck is and why it’s so important?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Well, of course, it’s a metaphor from a bottle, and what do we know about bottles? We know that the speed at which water or wine will flow from the bottle depends on the width of the neck. Doesn’t really depend on how big the bottle is otherwise, how much wine there is in it, how big the base is. It really just depends on the neck.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Well, of course, it’s a metaphor from a bottle, and what do we know about bottles? We know that the speed at which water or wine will flow from the bottle depends on the width of the neck. Doesn’t really depend on how big the bottle is otherwise, how much wine there is in it, how big the base is. It really just depends on the neck.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And in many processes in the economy and in the economy overall, it looks like there are certain things that have to happen that act as bottlenecks. Let’s say you’re going out to see your cousins for Thanksgiving dinner, and you’ve gotta get everyone in your house into the car, and you’ve gotta pack up the pies that you’re bringing and contributing to the festivities.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And in many processes in the economy and in the economy overall, it looks like there are certain things that have to happen that act as bottlenecks. Let’s say you’re going out to see your cousins for Thanksgiving dinner, and you’ve gotta get everyone in your house into the car, and you’ve gotta pack up the pies that you’re bringing and contributing to the festivities.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Well, everyone in the house could have gotten up early, gotten dressed, put on their Thanksgiving sweaters, gotten the pies into the car. But you’re not leaving the house until everyone has their shoes on and their socks. And maybe there’s someone in the family who just is getting real slow about getting their socks and their shoes on.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Well, everyone in the house could have gotten up early, gotten dressed, put on their Thanksgiving sweaters, gotten the pies into the car. But you’re not leaving the house until everyone has their shoes on and their socks. And maybe there’s someone in the family who just is getting real slow about getting their socks and their shoes on.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>How fast is it that you leave the house? It doesn’t really depend on how fast everyone is. It depends on how slow the slowest person is. That person becomes a bottleneck. Maybe an example we can all relate to. Much of the economy has that flavor, where it’s not how good you are at a lot of things. What’s really sort of determining the rate of the economy is the things we’re quite slow at, the things we’re not very good at.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>How fast is it that you leave the house? It doesn’t really depend on how fast everyone is. It depends on how slow the slowest person is. That person becomes a bottleneck. Maybe an example we can all relate to. Much of the economy has that flavor, where it’s not how good you are at a lot of things. What’s really sort of determining the rate of the economy is the things we’re quite slow at, the things we’re not very good at.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So basically, it’s this task that is slowing down the speed with which the entire overall goal or objective can be met. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So basically, it’s this task that is slowing down the speed with which the entire overall goal or objective can be met. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And the reason that’s important is because often in innovation, we get really focused on the shiny thing that’s going really fast, and we’re really excited about how fast it can compute things and these kinds of new technologies.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And the reason that’s important is because often in innovation, we get really focused on the shiny thing that’s going really fast, and we’re really excited about how fast it can compute things and these kinds of new technologies.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But often what really matters is the thing we’re not looking at. It’s the things that we’re quite bad at. The things that we’re really bad at are actually going to slow down the whole system, and if we can’t improve those, the gains from these kind of shiny new objects and new technologies won’t be as great as we hope.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But often what really matters is the thing we’re not looking at. It’s the things that we’re quite bad at. The things that we’re really bad at are actually going to slow down the whole system, and if we can’t improve those, the gains from these kind of shiny new objects and new technologies won’t be as great as we hope.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I thought about these bottlenecks a lot after our initial conversation. Like, whenever I heard a tech leader say AI was going to be ready to colonize the galaxy in five years, or whenever I started spiraling about whether AI was going to take over every job ever. Now, about that. Overall, Ben, like many economists, is bullish on AI.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I thought about these bottlenecks a lot after our initial conversation. Like, whenever I heard a tech leader say AI was going to be ready to colonize the galaxy in five years, or whenever I started spiraling about whether AI was going to take over every job ever. Now, about that. Overall, Ben, like many economists, is bullish on AI.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>He says that automation is generally good for workers. Sure, it causes some job loss and dislocation in the short term. But in the long term, it raises the quality of life for everybody, in part because it lowers the price of things we need and want. But that doesn’t mean people don’t get harmed along the way.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>He says that automation is generally good for workers. Sure, it causes some job loss and dislocation in the short term. But in the long term, it raises the quality of life for everybody, in part because it lowers the price of things we need and want. But that doesn’t mean people don’t get harmed along the way.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> So, one of the fears people have is that these automation technologies take jobs.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> So, one of the fears people have is that these automation technologies take jobs.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And of course, this goes back to the early years of the Industrial Revolution and the Luddites. You know, when you have handcrafts people who are silversmiths and blacksmiths, and you’re making clothes by hand, and then suddenly you have, say, the loom, you’re going to put out of work a lot of hand clothes makers.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And of course, this goes back to the early years of the Industrial Revolution and the Luddites. You know, when you have handcrafts people who are silversmiths and blacksmiths, and you’re making clothes by hand, and then suddenly you have, say, the loom, you’re going to put out of work a lot of hand clothes makers.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But they’re going to migrate into other jobs, right? Over the long run, we’re going to see people do many other things, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But they’re going to migrate into other jobs, right? Over the long run, we’re going to see people do many other things, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Think about the real economy. Think about farming. I don’t know if anyone in the audience has ever had a chance to ride around in a combine harvester.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Think about the real economy. Think about farming. I don’t know if anyone in the audience has ever had a chance to ride around in a combine harvester.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But, that’s one of the most incredible pieces of machinery you can imagine. I think a single combine harvester with a bunch of trucks driving up and around it, was able to harvest something like four or five million pounds of corn in twelve hours. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But, that’s one of the most incredible pieces of machinery you can imagine. I think a single combine harvester with a bunch of trucks driving up and around it, was able to harvest something like four or five million pounds of corn in twelve hours. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s insane. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s insane. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Right? And certainly, agricultural technology is one of those areas where we’ve had massive productivity growth.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Right? And certainly, agricultural technology is one of those areas where we’ve had massive productivity growth.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We have better seeds and irrigation systems. We have a lot more knowledge. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We have better seeds and irrigation systems. We have a lot more knowledge. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Fertilizer. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Fertilizer. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones: \u003c/strong>Fertilizers… All sorts of pesticides, depending how you feel about that. And those together have made for very high productivity, meaning, one hour of labor working with those machines can produce an enormous amount of food.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones: \u003c/strong>Fertilizers… All sorts of pesticides, depending how you feel about that. And those together have made for very high productivity, meaning, one hour of labor working with those machines can produce an enormous amount of food.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And the end result of that is that instead of having half our workforce in the US, you know, be in agriculture- \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And the end result of that is that instead of having half our workforce in the US, you know, be in agriculture- \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And that’s what it would have been, like- two hundred years ago.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And that’s what it would have been, like- two hundred years ago.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And that’s what it is in many very low-income countries today, which still struggle to put in place even more basic agricultural technologies.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And that’s what it is in many very low-income countries today, which still struggle to put in place even more basic agricultural technologies.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, if fifty percent of the American workforce was in agriculture, now it’s, say, two percent of the American workforce working with an enormous amount of machines. But of course, that’s why many people have gone on to find other careers in other parts of the country. And overall, that process, while it’s not incidental, it can be quite painful. This process of what we call creative destruction, in the long run is what allows us to be far more productive, have higher standards of living.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, if fifty percent of the American workforce was in agriculture, now it’s, say, two percent of the American workforce working with an enormous amount of machines. But of course, that’s why many people have gone on to find other careers in other parts of the country. And overall, that process, while it’s not incidental, it can be quite painful. This process of what we call creative destruction, in the long run is what allows us to be far more productive, have higher standards of living.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Coming up, Ben Jones explains why he wants AI to be really good at every job it automates, and why the bigger risk is mediocre AI.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Coming up, Ben Jones explains why he wants AI to be really good at every job it automates, and why the bigger risk is mediocre AI.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I do want to point out a very important difference that I think a lot of people are feeling, which is that what is happening with artificial intelligence right now, it’s that the most desirable jobs seem to be the ones that are most at risk. So, I don’t think many people grow up and think, “Boy, I really want to spend all day turning a knob again and again and again.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I do want to point out a very important difference that I think a lot of people are feeling, which is that what is happening with artificial intelligence right now, it’s that the most desirable jobs seem to be the ones that are most at risk. So, I don’t think many people grow up and think, “Boy, I really want to spend all day turning a knob again and again and again.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But a lot of people really do want to do things like animate, or people want to become journalists. People are accepting giant salary reductions already, to position themselves in these fields. And it seems like those jobs are also at risk. So, there does almost seem to be an emotional difference with the jobs that are being lost right now, that puts kids growing up today in a really hard spot in terms of, follow your dreams.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But a lot of people really do want to do things like animate, or people want to become journalists. People are accepting giant salary reductions already, to position themselves in these fields. And it seems like those jobs are also at risk. So, there does almost seem to be an emotional difference with the jobs that are being lost right now, that puts kids growing up today in a really hard spot in terms of, follow your dreams.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Well, so, I mean, this is a bit too soon to tell, I think. But, you’re right that if you think of a job as not a task, but a bundle of tasks, that doesn’t mean that you don’t like some of the tasks more than others. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Well, so, I mean, this is a bit too soon to tell, I think. But, you’re right that if you think of a job as not a task, but a bundle of tasks, that doesn’t mean that you don’t like some of the tasks more than others. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> If you’re a chef, I presume you think about the menu and, and some of the cooking is more fun than washing the dishes, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> If you’re a chef, I presume you think about the menu and, and some of the cooking is more fun than washing the dishes, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, that’s exactly right.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, that’s exactly right.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Maybe I’m wrong. And I don’t think people are the same. So, I think people have different preferences, even in the same job, about different kinds of tasks that they have to do. But to the extent that, you know, AI replaces, it’s just lower cost for how good it is at the tasks that you like, I think that’s not gonna feel so great.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Maybe I’m wrong. And I don’t think people are the same. So, I think people have different preferences, even in the same job, about different kinds of tasks that they have to do. But to the extent that, you know, AI replaces, it’s just lower cost for how good it is at the tasks that you like, I think that’s not gonna feel so great.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, what if it’s really good at creativity and then all you’re doing is editing? But you’d rather do the creative part. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, what if it’s really good at creativity and then all you’re doing is editing? But you’d rather do the creative part. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Exactly. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Exactly. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> But on the other hand, you know, it’s also the case that when you bring in… Like, let’s go back to regressions. I like to do statistical analysis. I think it’s really interesting.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> But on the other hand, you know, it’s also the case that when you bring in… Like, let’s go back to regressions. I like to do statistical analysis. I think it’s really interesting.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But I’m mostly interested in the output. I have no interest in the calculation, and it’s boring. So, this makes me get to the interesting part much faster. And maybe when you’re writing, it’s a collaborator, right? I mean, maybe it’s not a replacement. It’s like another voice on your team.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But I’m mostly interested in the output. I have no interest in the calculation, and it’s boring. So, this makes me get to the interesting part much faster. And maybe when you’re writing, it’s a collaborator, right? I mean, maybe it’s not a replacement. It’s like another voice on your team.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And suddenly you’re getting a higher quality product, and it could be that you’re making a screenplay or writing an article, you’re writing a song, and suddenly it’s better for your collaboration with the AI, but they’re not actually taking kind of full control. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And suddenly you’re getting a higher quality product, and it could be that you’re making a screenplay or writing an article, you’re writing a song, and suddenly it’s better for your collaboration with the AI, but they’re not actually taking kind of full control. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s the optimistic version here.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s the optimistic version here.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>That at least for a lot of jobs, some tasks will be automated, but other tasks won’t. And those tasks, those bottlenecks, will keep us humans busy and employed and maybe even fulfilled. And looking for these bottlenecks in our own jobs or industries, that is something that feels actionable. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>That at least for a lot of jobs, some tasks will be automated, but other tasks won’t. And those tasks, those bottlenecks, will keep us humans busy and employed and maybe even fulfilled. And looking for these bottlenecks in our own jobs or industries, that is something that feels actionable. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Naturally, if there’s some bottleneck tasks that are slowing up the whole system, those are gonna have a lot of value.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Naturally, if there’s some bottleneck tasks that are slowing up the whole system, those are gonna have a lot of value.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>If you can continue to do those or do them relatively well, people will value that. You’ll get a lot of income, you’ll get a sustained job, based on those kinds of tasks. So, the question I think is, are there tasks that are bottleneck tasks that computers can’t do very well yet? That’s really where you should focus.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>If you can continue to do those or do them relatively well, people will value that. You’ll get a lot of income, you’ll get a sustained job, based on those kinds of tasks. So, the question I think is, are there tasks that are bottleneck tasks that computers can’t do very well yet? That’s really where you should focus.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And in Ben’s view, assuming there will always be some role for humans, we should actually be rooting for AI to get really, really good at whatever it automates. To understand why, we first need to understand two opposing forces. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And in Ben’s view, assuming there will always be some role for humans, we should actually be rooting for AI to get really, really good at whatever it automates. To understand why, we first need to understand two opposing forces. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> So, the first is automation. Automation would be when a machine starts doing a task that we used to do as labor, humans.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> So, the first is automation. Automation would be when a machine starts doing a task that we used to do as labor, humans.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think this is the force that a lot of people think of. They think about, okay, this machine can do more and more and more work, and so there’s obviously going to be just, like, less and less and less of the income or the share of the economy that’s going to be available to us non-machines.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think this is the force that a lot of people think of. They think about, okay, this machine can do more and more and more work, and so there’s obviously going to be just, like, less and less and less of the income or the share of the economy that’s going to be available to us non-machines.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. That’s the sort of obvious force that most people get. But there’s another force which is a little bit more subtle, and it has to do with the fact that if machines are taking over tasks, and they are really good at those tasks, right… And at some level they have to be good at those tasks, otherwise they wouldn’t be taking them over from labor.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. That’s the sort of obvious force that most people get. But there’s another force which is a little bit more subtle, and it has to do with the fact that if machines are taking over tasks, and they are really good at those tasks, right… And at some level they have to be good at those tasks, otherwise they wouldn’t be taking them over from labor.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But if they get very, very good at those tasks, then what happens is those tasks become very cheap, in the sense that whenever you flood a market with something, right? If I made anything abundant, its price will fall. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But if they get very, very good at those tasks, then what happens is those tasks become very cheap, in the sense that whenever you flood a market with something, right? If I made anything abundant, its price will fall. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so what’s gonna happen if machines are really, really good at those tasks is the kinds of services they produce will become very inexpensive.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so what’s gonna happen if machines are really, really good at those tasks is the kinds of services they produce will become very inexpensive.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so, what we really want if AI is gonna take over a lot of tasks, it’s very important that it not just slightly beat labor at those tasks. We want AI, if it’s gonna take over those tasks, to be really great at it, because then we’re gonna have an abundance of that output, and actually the prices fall and people end up being much better off in a real income sense.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so, what we really want if AI is gonna take over a lot of tasks, it’s very important that it not just slightly beat labor at those tasks. We want AI, if it’s gonna take over those tasks, to be really great at it, because then we’re gonna have an abundance of that output, and actually the prices fall and people end up being much better off in a real income sense.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, I was trying to come up with an example, and instead of it being, quite as theoretical, I was trying to think of something that maybe is already happening in the economy today so that we could sort of play out this idea, this thought experiment, and really understand why even us mere laborers really ought to be working, rooting for AI to get quite good at the tasks of ours that it takes over.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, I was trying to come up with an example, and instead of it being, quite as theoretical, I was trying to think of something that maybe is already happening in the economy today so that we could sort of play out this idea, this thought experiment, and really understand why even us mere laborers really ought to be working, rooting for AI to get quite good at the tasks of ours that it takes over.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, I’m gonna read an example to you, and I am hoping that you can respond to it. Give me a sense of whether this is correct, and if so, what it means. If not, where I went wrong. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, I’m gonna read an example to you, and I am hoping that you can respond to it. Give me a sense of whether this is correct, and if so, what it means. If not, where I went wrong. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>‘Imagine that companies start replacing customer service professionals at call centers with AI. This is something that we already know is happening, like when you call your health insurance company to ask about coverage, or you ask your bank why a deposit hasn’t gone through, what have you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>‘Imagine that companies start replacing customer service professionals at call centers with AI. This is something that we already know is happening, like when you call your health insurance company to ask about coverage, or you ask your bank why a deposit hasn’t gone through, what have you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The person you talk to gets automated. They’re replaced by AI, and even if the AI isn’t cheap, they still cost a lot less than paying the salaries of fluent English speakers trained in customer service. So, one scenario is the AI is just ‘okay’ at this. It provides worse customer service than humans. People don’t always get their problems resolved.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The person you talk to gets automated. They’re replaced by AI, and even if the AI isn’t cheap, they still cost a lot less than paying the salaries of fluent English speakers trained in customer service. So, one scenario is the AI is just ‘okay’ at this. It provides worse customer service than humans. People don’t always get their problems resolved.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Maybe they get frustrated, maybe they even get angry at the company. But the AI is still good enough that even though the company’s reputation might suffer a bit, the money they’re saving kind of makes it worth it. Maybe they come out a bit ahead. And this is your nightmare scenario as I understand it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Maybe they get frustrated, maybe they even get angry at the company. But the AI is still good enough that even though the company’s reputation might suffer a bit, the money they’re saving kind of makes it worth it. Maybe they come out a bit ahead. And this is your nightmare scenario as I understand it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, all these call center jobs get eliminated. Nobody really benefits except for the companies that might save a little money every year. Is that a fair depiction of the nightmare scenario?’\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, all these call center jobs get eliminated. Nobody really benefits except for the companies that might save a little money every year. Is that a fair depiction of the nightmare scenario?’\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Yes, because if the companies are only just saving a little bit of money, that’s a sign that the computers aren’t that much better at the task.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Yes, because if the companies are only just saving a little bit of money, that’s a sign that the computers aren’t that much better at the task.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We get bad services. People lose their jobs. That’s an accurate version of the kind of nightmare scenario one would have in mind. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We get bad services. People lose their jobs. That’s an accurate version of the kind of nightmare scenario one would have in mind. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. Now, if the AI is really, really good at customer service, then eventually most of us do benefit. So, some people do lose their jobs, but they are able to move into others.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. Now, if the AI is really, really good at customer service, then eventually most of us do benefit. So, some people do lose their jobs, but they are able to move into others.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And meanwhile, the rest of us get our questions answered really quickly, really easily. We have more time in our day to do other things, and hopefully the products and the services from that company become less expensive because the firm is able to pass along those savings. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And meanwhile, the rest of us get our questions answered really quickly, really easily. We have more time in our day to do other things, and hopefully the products and the services from that company become less expensive because the firm is able to pass along those savings. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And as long as those workers who are displaced are able to find other kinds of jobs in this new economy, everyone’s income will eventually, be going up.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And as long as those workers who are displaced are able to find other kinds of jobs in this new economy, everyone’s income will eventually, be going up.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, if I want to go back to this farming example, it’s very easy for me to see that, you know, in the last two hundred years, let’s say, since half of America was a farmer, it’s very easy for me to see that life is a lot better now. You’re gonna live if you are born — you stand a much higher likelihood, you’re just going to enjoy a lot of things that our ancestors would not have been able to. But I think right now, a lot of people are feeling like life in general is not getting better. They’re kind of feeling like, the chances that my kid is going to have a better life than me are not that great.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, if I want to go back to this farming example, it’s very easy for me to see that, you know, in the last two hundred years, let’s say, since half of America was a farmer, it’s very easy for me to see that life is a lot better now. You’re gonna live if you are born — you stand a much higher likelihood, you’re just going to enjoy a lot of things that our ancestors would not have been able to. But I think right now, a lot of people are feeling like life in general is not getting better. They’re kind of feeling like, the chances that my kid is going to have a better life than me are not that great.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, houses are getting more expensive. It’s more expensive to go to college. Like, I think a lot of people are feeling like they are just treading water. And so how does that square with this idea of incremental progress? Is it just that we are imagining the past to be better than it was? Or is it that maybe some of the things that are real pain points are because of these bottlenecks or something else?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, houses are getting more expensive. It’s more expensive to go to college. Like, I think a lot of people are feeling like they are just treading water. And so how does that square with this idea of incremental progress? Is it just that we are imagining the past to be better than it was? Or is it that maybe some of the things that are real pain points are because of these bottlenecks or something else?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> I would say that’s more to do with inequality, and where the benefits have been felt in this economy. And this goes way before artificial intelligence. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> I would say that’s more to do with inequality, and where the benefits have been felt in this economy. And this goes way before artificial intelligence. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Going back to the ’70s for quite a long time, the median real household income was kind of stagnating in the United States.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Going back to the ’70s for quite a long time, the median real household income was kind of stagnating in the United States.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so, we had a lot of growth, but as I think people know, a lot of that increased value added in the economy every year has been captured by people who are pretty well off already. One of the concerns with AI, as we see, these billionaires, trillionaires starting to emerge, is that too much of the added value will be captured by those who own the companies or own the capital. So, I think that’s a real question. The other kind of inequality, which is actually the major kind of inequality that’s been at work in the United States, is within labor. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so, we had a lot of growth, but as I think people know, a lot of that increased value added in the economy every year has been captured by people who are pretty well off already. One of the concerns with AI, as we see, these billionaires, trillionaires starting to emerge, is that too much of the added value will be captured by those who own the companies or own the capital. So, I think that’s a real question. The other kind of inequality, which is actually the major kind of inequality that’s been at work in the United States, is within labor. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And what we’ve seen over time since the ’70s is a spreading where people who are in the upper educated professional classes have been capturing a lot of the growth, in income per capita\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>for themselves. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And what we’ve seen over time since the ’70s is a spreading where people who are in the upper educated professional classes have been capturing a lot of the growth, in income per capita\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>for themselves. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh, interesting.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones: \u003c/strong>Whereas the median household has been struggling. Compared to history, we’ve seen relatively slow growth in real standards of living among the median household. I think when you think about why, Americans maybe not necessarily fully seeing these facts, but feeling them right? Feeling that maybe they put it on globalization, but that’s maybe not the right… But there’s some globalization, there’s a lot of automation, there’s a lot of technological change within the country. But feeling that somehow, these advances or this participation in the world economy, doesn’t seem like it’s making their lives better. And I think for many people, at least going back to the ’70s, there’s some truth in that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones: \u003c/strong>Whereas the median household has been struggling. Compared to history, we’ve seen relatively slow growth in real standards of living among the median household. I think when you think about why, Americans maybe not necessarily fully seeing these facts, but feeling them right? Feeling that maybe they put it on globalization, but that’s maybe not the right… But there’s some globalization, there’s a lot of automation, there’s a lot of technological change within the country. But feeling that somehow, these advances or this participation in the world economy, doesn’t seem like it’s making their lives better. And I think for many people, at least going back to the ’70s, there’s some truth in that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> In Ben’s view, much of the pessimism Americans feel about technological progress comes not from the technology itself but from how its gains have been distributed. But he thinks that at least some of this inequality, not the kind driven by tech billionaires, but the inequality within workers might actually decrease as AI automates white collar work. And to be very blunt, he does not share the average American’s concerns about AI making human labor obsolete.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> In Ben’s view, much of the pessimism Americans feel about technological progress comes not from the technology itself but from how its gains have been distributed. But he thinks that at least some of this inequality, not the kind driven by tech billionaires, but the inequality within workers might actually decrease as AI automates white collar work. And to be very blunt, he does not share the average American’s concerns about AI making human labor obsolete.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So, I mean, a stat I ran across earlier this year, just 6% of Americans say workplace AI use will lead to more jobs in the long run, and you would just wholeheartedly disagree with that and say that, this might just be kind of a failure of imagination.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So, I mean, a stat I ran across earlier this year, just 6% of Americans say workplace AI use will lead to more jobs in the long run, and you would just wholeheartedly disagree with that and say that, this might just be kind of a failure of imagination.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. I mean, you wouldn’t have imagined there was an ATM technician or a satellite engineer or a pilot before those things were created. And, I think it’s very hard to predict what’s gonna become easier, what’s gonna become hard, and that’s for the future to tell us. It’s gonna be unexpected and pretty interesting.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. I mean, you wouldn’t have imagined there was an ATM technician or a satellite engineer or a pilot before those things were created. And, I think it’s very hard to predict what’s gonna become easier, what’s gonna become hard, and that’s for the future to tell us. It’s gonna be unexpected and pretty interesting.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But there’s nothing so far in history that would suggest that suddenly all labor could be replaced. And even if it were, I mean, just to be clear, I mean, if it were, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But there’s nothing so far in history that would suggest that suddenly all labor could be replaced. And even if it were, I mean, just to be clear, I mean, if it were, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, let’s go there! \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Then the amount of output would be enormous, right? So, if you actually replaced all human labor and you had these efficient machines that could do everything, the amount of consumption you could have would be incredibly high. It would at that point become entirely an issue of equity and access to that income. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Then the amount of output would be enormous, right? So, if you actually replaced all human labor and you had these efficient machines that could do everything, the amount of consumption you could have would be incredibly high. It would at that point become entirely an issue of equity and access to that income. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And, you know, that’s where governments can step in, right? And we can have redistributive policies. I mean, do you wanna just let a few capitalists own everything? I doubt that is a political equilibrium- with everyone starving and, like, three people are, you know, quadrillionaires. Maybe, this gets into dystopian scenarios —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And, you know, that’s where governments can step in, right? And we can have redistributive policies. I mean, do you wanna just let a few capitalists own everything? I doubt that is a political equilibrium- with everyone starving and, like, three people are, you know, quadrillionaires. Maybe, this gets into dystopian scenarios —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, it does\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And it gets into various other things. And I’m not saying that’s not possible. We certainly see authoritarian behavior around the world that is problematic. It’s ultimately a question of our political process and the representation of voices who are being left out, or doing much worse because of technological change.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And it gets into various other things. And I’m not saying that’s not possible. We certainly see authoritarian behavior around the world that is problematic. It’s ultimately a question of our political process and the representation of voices who are being left out, or doing much worse because of technological change.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And, you know, if you’re making the pie much bigger through this kind of churn and technological advance, there’s more resources around. You should be able to compensate those who lost in some way and not have them live a life that is much harder for virtue of having been replaced by machines.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And, you know, if you’re making the pie much bigger through this kind of churn and technological advance, there’s more resources around. You should be able to compensate those who lost in some way and not have them live a life that is much harder for virtue of having been replaced by machines.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think, you know, in the United States, you have to be careful in both directions. Technological progress is inevitably about creative destruction, right? I mean, think of what Amazon has done, right? E-tail destroyed bricks-and-mortar bookstores first and a whole lot of other kinds of bricks and mortar, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think, you know, in the United States, you have to be careful in both directions. Technological progress is inevitably about creative destruction, right? I mean, think of what Amazon has done, right? E-tail destroyed bricks-and-mortar bookstores first and a whole lot of other kinds of bricks and mortar, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But it is more efficient for a lot of people. Consumers like it. They get things delivered. It’s cheaper. You know, they get things faster. But if you owned a bookstore, it was terrible, right? And, so, how do we think about that as a society? Well, on one hand, if we let the people who are already kind of in charge resist creative destruction, then we don’t grow and we don’t advance, and then those people are kind of holding us back, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But it is more efficient for a lot of people. Consumers like it. They get things delivered. It’s cheaper. You know, they get things faster. But if you owned a bookstore, it was terrible, right? And, so, how do we think about that as a society? Well, on one hand, if we let the people who are already kind of in charge resist creative destruction, then we don’t grow and we don’t advance, and then those people are kind of holding us back, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>On the other hand, if you just let creative destruction go with no kind of willy-nilly, with no compensation, which is pretty close to the American model, right? You got a lotta progress. You got a lotta churn. You get a lotta technological advance, but you’re gonna displace a lotta people. And so, at that point, you definitely need a very, at minimum, a very flexible labor market which allows people to reallocate into other jobs, and there are ways to have policy to facilitate that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>On the other hand, if you just let creative destruction go with no kind of willy-nilly, with no compensation, which is pretty close to the American model, right? You got a lotta progress. You got a lotta churn. You get a lotta technological advance, but you’re gonna displace a lotta people. And so, at that point, you definitely need a very, at minimum, a very flexible labor market which allows people to reallocate into other jobs, and there are ways to have policy to facilitate that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Retraining, et cetera. But that’s not to sugarcoat anything here. I mean, if you’re in a rural area and the main employer goes down, reallocating to a new job probably means reallocating to a new place, leaving your family, leaving the region you know and all the culture that goes with that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Retraining, et cetera. But that’s not to sugarcoat anything here. I mean, if you’re in a rural area and the main employer goes down, reallocating to a new job probably means reallocating to a new place, leaving your family, leaving the region you know and all the culture that goes with that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>That’s an extraordinarily painful experience. And whether that’s because of technological change or trade, you know, I think it’s on all of us and as citizens in a country to take that extremely seriously.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>That’s an extraordinarily painful experience. And whether that’s because of technological change or trade, you know, I think it’s on all of us and as citizens in a country to take that extremely seriously.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I think this question of how we as a society deploy and adapt to automation is one of the most important questions today. But before we can adapt, we need to understand. That’s what this show is trying to do, help more people, including me, make sense of things. So we have a lot more great conversations coming up with economists, scientists, experts in design and media, people whose work can help us understand this moment and maybe even peek into the future.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I think this question of how we as a society deploy and adapt to automation is one of the most important questions today. But before we can adapt, we need to understand. That’s what this show is trying to do, help more people, including me, make sense of things. So we have a lot more great conversations coming up with economists, scientists, experts in design and media, people whose work can help us understand this moment and maybe even peek into the future.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love. Life, Automated is a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. We’re distributed by KQED. Our show is produced by Jesse Dukes with help from Nathan Ray and Steven Jackson. Music by Steven Jackson, Q Shop, and Neutral Propulsion Laboratory.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love. Life, Automated is a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. We’re distributed by KQED. Our show is produced by Jesse Dukes with help from Nathan Ray and Steven Jackson. Music by Steven Jackson, Q Shop, and Neutral Propulsion Laboratory.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Recording help from Will Feeney and George Christensen. Administrative support, recording, and wise counsel from Stacia Sliger.\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Will AI actually take over every job ever? \u003ca href=\"https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/academics-research/faculty/jones_benjamin_f/\">Economist Ben Jones\u003c/a> doesn’t think so. Drawing from historical evidence around innovation, Jones argues that automation never conquers \u003cem>everything \u003c/em>— it inevitably creates operational bottlenecks that only humans can solve. By leaning into these bottlenecks, we can protect meaningful, well-paid work. But his optimism comes with a stark caveat: there is one nightmare scenario where this historical pattern breaks down entirely. And it doesn’t involve superintelligence. It involves mediocre AI.\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Further Reading: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ai-frontiers.org/articles/how-ai-could-benefit-the-workers-it-displaces\">How AI Could Benefit Workers, Even If It Displaces Most Jobs\u003c/a> — Benjamin Jones, \u003cem>AI Frontiers\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I’m Jess Love. This is Life Automated. For generations of Americans, the question was, where were you when JFK was shot? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Breaking news bulletin announcing the death of John F. Kennedy]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem> Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. You’ll excuse the fact that I’m out of breath, but about 10 or 15 minutes ago, a tragic thing from all indications at this point has happened to this city.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> When Neil Armstrong walked on the moon?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip of Neil Armstrong on the moon]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>That’s one small step for man, one giant- \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Or the towers fell on 9/11?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[News bulletin from September 11, 2001]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>There’s smoke \u003c/em>\u003cem>billowing out of the World Trade Center.\u003c/em>\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> These are moments seared into our collective psyche, and now we have a new moment, only this one arrived a bit differently, a browser at a time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Where were you when you first used ChatGPT?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is Life, Automated. I’m Jess Love, and I can tell you exactly where I was. The year was 2022, and I was visiting my in-laws in Florida. It was that lazy week between Christmas and New Year’s that I usually spend in a food coma. I sat on my sister-in-law’s childhood bed and signed up for a free subscription to ChatGPT.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I started asking the machine questions, easy ones at first. What did it know about butterflies native to Chicago or the most common tourist attractions in Italy? But it wasn’t too long before I asked what I really wanted to know. Could it do my job? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>See, much of the work I’ve done over the past decade is in science communication, essentially translating original research written by and for experts into something comprehensible to most people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, I asked ChatGPT to summarize some papers I was familiar with, and it did okay. But what it lacked in finesse, and especially in those earlier iterations, accurate citations, it more than made up for in sheer efficiency. In just seconds, it could do work that would take a human the better part of a day.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>If I didn’t like the first draft that was conjured, I could just tell it to try again from a different perspective now. Write it shorter. Write it longer. Write it for a fifth grader. Write it with sports metaphors. I was stunned. It seemed clear we were entering a new era of science communication where all the world’s knowledge was not only available, but personally customizable on demand.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>If you wanted a given study to be relayed in the style of Mr. Darcy flirting with Elizabeth Bennet, you were now suddenly in luck. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[AI-generated summary of Pride and Prejudice in style of research article]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Darcy’s mouth tightened in a way that suggested the accusation had landed, but he proceeded anyway. My dear Miss Bennet, said Mr. Darcy with an air of careful restraint, I have been reading “AIG in Hindsight.” It is an instructive account of how a firm may appear a paragon of prudence until one… \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> The thing I did to make my living that made me special, that made me employable, that I loved to do, was now available to anybody. How could I possibly compete? What did all of my expertise even mean anymore?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the more I thought about ChatGPT, and the more its implications for a lot of other professions became clear, the more I started wondering about all of us. I have a seven-year-old daughter. What opportunities are gonna be available to her? I’m not alone here. The majority of Americans feel pretty anxious about AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it’s not just jobs. Public polling data suggests Americans are really concerned about how AI will affect education, democracy, our environment, our information ecosystem, and just how we relate to each other. But even as I share all these concerns, I gotta say, over time, a big part of me did start rooting for this technology.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Partly, this is because I now work at a research institute, the Ryan Institute on Complexity. I use AI tools every day, and so do the people around me. I see firsthand how useful they can be. But there’s a bigger reason. I have another daughter, an 11-year-old. She was born with a rare neurological disorder, so rare that it doesn’t actually have a name.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You can currently count the number of people in the world with her specific genetic mutation on two fingers. And this genetic difference, it affects how she talks, how she moves, how she uses objects like forks and scissors, how she thinks and learns. My daughter lives in a world that wasn’t made for her, with a brain that science doesn’t really understand.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, technology that can harness the world’s cumulative knowledge in order to make her life a little easier sounds pretty incredible. AI that can predict which medications might be useful or offer step-by-step directions on how to operate household appliances, and then wait for her to finish each step.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of AI Microwave]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>First, press the button above the handle and open the door. Your food will go inside that box when it’s ready. Now close the door. Did it click? \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Or AI that can adapt educational materials to her specifically, on demand, maybe in the voice of her favorite Moana character. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Maui from Moana]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>You’re welcome. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Sign me up. So yeah, that’s me. One person, one employee, one parent, reckoning with this technology. But of course, it isn’t just me. There are millions, billions of us wondering what AI and other kinds of automation really mean for our lives and our businesses and our communities, and what we should be doing to prepare. If you are one of these people, I’d like to invite you on a journey.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Because nobody can predict the future, nobody has all the answers about where we’re headed, but there are a lot of people with some answers, and I’ll be speaking with them on Life, Automated, a new podcast from Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, distributed by KQED. I’ll talk with scientists and philosophers, business leaders and engineers and artists, all with unique insights into the world we’re collectively building.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m not gonna try to freak you out. I’m not gonna try to sell you anything. I am gonna get nerdy. I’m gonna try to understand, as best I can, where we’re headed. And you’re invited.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Shortly after I had my initial ChatGPT moment several years ago, I tracked down Ben Jones. He’s an economist and a co-director here at the Ryan Institute where he studies economic development, innovation, entrepreneurship, and the scientific process. And it turns out, Ben has been paying attention to new developments in generative AI for much longer than me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>When we talked three and a half years ago, I was kind of at peak anxiety; but Ben, he’d had a head start. Speaking with him helped me feel better about where we were headed, in part because he gave me a helpful way of thinking about AI. So, I wanted to bring him back for another conversation, this time in a recording studio. I started off by getting him talking about the first moment he realized AI had the potential to bring about big changes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Did you have an AI moment, kind of a single moment that sort of shook you to the core and made you think, wow, something about these newest models is really fundamentally different? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> I did. I’ve had several AI moments along the way. I think many people, you know, when you see what AI can do, it’s uncanny.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Sometimes the hair stands up on the back of my neck. But my first AI moment where the hair stood up on the back of my neck was in 2017, and I was in Toronto for a conference that mixed economists and technologists, people from Geoff Hinton’s lab, who would go on to lead many of the top AI groups at the top companies.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And we were shown over dinner, it was a very nice dinner, a video. The video was of an AI learning how to play a first-person shooter game. And as you may know, with first-person shooter games, the experience is if you’re looking through the eyes of the player. So, we’re sort of looking through the eyes of the AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And without any particular directives, except to sort of survive as long as possible, the AI was training itself to play this game better and better. And at first, you’re sitting there looking through the AI’s eyes, and you’re kind of like a drunken sailor. You’re, like, stumbling around, you’re banging into walls, you’re getting trapped in corners.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You never pick up health or a weapon. You just don’t last very long. The video showed us the AI’s progression kind of in a fast-forward, high speed over maybe 24 hours. And so around the middle of the training, over, maybe 12 hours, it started running around the maze extremely effectively, but it wasn’t always picking up things on the floor, and it was no longer falling off bridges.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>By the end of the day, it was not only picking everything up and firing the weapons accurately, it was killing every single person in the game, all the real players. It didn’t miss. It didn’t miss in any way. And just watching this progression from this AI algorithm was a really uncanny moment, and to me, opened my mind to how powerful but also potentially worrisome AI is.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think, you know, on some level it’s not that surprising that a computer can learn to master a computer game. But what makes this story so incredible is just that the computer had no instructions that told us what it was supposed to be doing or what it was supposed to be optimizing other than just, like, live.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it was able to just learn all of those techniques just via trial and error. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Right. Just the certain algorithms for training AI with fairly simple objectives lead to this incredible set of capabilities, which are truly uncanny. Many people have probably had that first moment now with AI, I think a lot with ChatGPT, where you ask it a question and you can’t believe the answer.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You’re like, “How could it possibly be coming up with this?” And AI absolutely has that quality. So, for me, it kind of happened a bit earlier, and so I started writing about it a bit earlier than most because I’d had that experience a bit earlier than most. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, which was very convenient for me personally because it meant that, when I was still in my AI freak-out phase, you were somebody who had been doing research on this for years, and were able to kind of be this, calming presence, in order to give me some concrete information about this technology.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, you have kind of an interesting perspective, which is that AI, the current generative AI that we’re talking about with ChatGPT, it’s really just part of a long process of automation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And it’s true that certain technologies for a long time, and AI is one of them, are just hands down amazing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They do things that are just amazing. But that doesn’t mean that they disemploy everybody.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Phew.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And, how can those two things be true? Well, let me just give you another example. You know, obviously computers have been around for a long time now, and their capacity to do sort of certain kinds of calculations are just, more or less infinitely, virtually infinitely better than humans.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, in my field and in many research fields, you use data and statistical regressions. If I were to run a regression by hand, with a large number of observations, it would take me literally my entire life. And I would make mistakes. You know, my computer can do a regression with a million data points in a minute.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, we have these technologies that basically are infinitely better than us to do these tasks that are really important to what we do. And then you can ask, okay, well, has our understanding of economics or astronomy or physics multiplied by a similar factor? And you’d say no, because although we can do certain things really, really, really incredibly well, other things are holding us back.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But that doesn’t mean that you don’t have these other tasks, which I would call bottlenecks.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay, and this is the thing that I have thought about so often since our conversation. It kind of blew my mind. So, can you talk to us about what a bottleneck is and why it’s so important?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Well, of course, it’s a metaphor from a bottle, and what do we know about bottles? We know that the speed at which water or wine will flow from the bottle depends on the width of the neck. Doesn’t really depend on how big the bottle is otherwise, how much wine there is in it, how big the base is. It really just depends on the neck.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And in many processes in the economy and in the economy overall, it looks like there are certain things that have to happen that act as bottlenecks. Let’s say you’re going out to see your cousins for Thanksgiving dinner, and you’ve gotta get everyone in your house into the car, and you’ve gotta pack up the pies that you’re bringing and contributing to the festivities.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Well, everyone in the house could have gotten up early, gotten dressed, put on their Thanksgiving sweaters, gotten the pies into the car. But you’re not leaving the house until everyone has their shoes on and their socks. And maybe there’s someone in the family who just is getting real slow about getting their socks and their shoes on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>How fast is it that you leave the house? It doesn’t really depend on how fast everyone is. It depends on how slow the slowest person is. That person becomes a bottleneck. Maybe an example we can all relate to. Much of the economy has that flavor, where it’s not how good you are at a lot of things. What’s really sort of determining the rate of the economy is the things we’re quite slow at, the things we’re not very good at.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So basically, it’s this task that is slowing down the speed with which the entire overall goal or objective can be met. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And the reason that’s important is because often in innovation, we get really focused on the shiny thing that’s going really fast, and we’re really excited about how fast it can compute things and these kinds of new technologies.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But often what really matters is the thing we’re not looking at. It’s the things that we’re quite bad at. The things that we’re really bad at are actually going to slow down the whole system, and if we can’t improve those, the gains from these kind of shiny new objects and new technologies won’t be as great as we hope.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I thought about these bottlenecks a lot after our initial conversation. Like, whenever I heard a tech leader say AI was going to be ready to colonize the galaxy in five years, or whenever I started spiraling about whether AI was going to take over every job ever. Now, about that. Overall, Ben, like many economists, is bullish on AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>He says that automation is generally good for workers. Sure, it causes some job loss and dislocation in the short term. But in the long term, it raises the quality of life for everybody, in part because it lowers the price of things we need and want. But that doesn’t mean people don’t get harmed along the way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> So, one of the fears people have is that these automation technologies take jobs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And of course, this goes back to the early years of the Industrial Revolution and the Luddites. You know, when you have handcrafts people who are silversmiths and blacksmiths, and you’re making clothes by hand, and then suddenly you have, say, the loom, you’re going to put out of work a lot of hand clothes makers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But they’re going to migrate into other jobs, right? Over the long run, we’re going to see people do many other things, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Think about the real economy. Think about farming. I don’t know if anyone in the audience has ever had a chance to ride around in a combine harvester.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But, that’s one of the most incredible pieces of machinery you can imagine. I think a single combine harvester with a bunch of trucks driving up and around it, was able to harvest something like four or five million pounds of corn in twelve hours. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s insane. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Right? And certainly, agricultural technology is one of those areas where we’ve had massive productivity growth.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We have better seeds and irrigation systems. We have a lot more knowledge. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Fertilizer. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones: \u003c/strong>Fertilizers… All sorts of pesticides, depending how you feel about that. And those together have made for very high productivity, meaning, one hour of labor working with those machines can produce an enormous amount of food.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the end result of that is that instead of having half our workforce in the US, you know, be in agriculture- \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And that’s what it would have been, like- two hundred years ago.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And that’s what it is in many very low-income countries today, which still struggle to put in place even more basic agricultural technologies.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, if fifty percent of the American workforce was in agriculture, now it’s, say, two percent of the American workforce working with an enormous amount of machines. But of course, that’s why many people have gone on to find other careers in other parts of the country. And overall, that process, while it’s not incidental, it can be quite painful. This process of what we call creative destruction, in the long run is what allows us to be far more productive, have higher standards of living.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Coming up, Ben Jones explains why he wants AI to be really good at every job it automates, and why the bigger risk is mediocre AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I do want to point out a very important difference that I think a lot of people are feeling, which is that what is happening with artificial intelligence right now, it’s that the most desirable jobs seem to be the ones that are most at risk. So, I don’t think many people grow up and think, “Boy, I really want to spend all day turning a knob again and again and again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But a lot of people really do want to do things like animate, or people want to become journalists. People are accepting giant salary reductions already, to position themselves in these fields. And it seems like those jobs are also at risk. So, there does almost seem to be an emotional difference with the jobs that are being lost right now, that puts kids growing up today in a really hard spot in terms of, follow your dreams.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Well, so, I mean, this is a bit too soon to tell, I think. But, you’re right that if you think of a job as not a task, but a bundle of tasks, that doesn’t mean that you don’t like some of the tasks more than others. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> If you’re a chef, I presume you think about the menu and, and some of the cooking is more fun than washing the dishes, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, that’s exactly right.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Maybe I’m wrong. And I don’t think people are the same. So, I think people have different preferences, even in the same job, about different kinds of tasks that they have to do. But to the extent that, you know, AI replaces, it’s just lower cost for how good it is at the tasks that you like, I think that’s not gonna feel so great.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, what if it’s really good at creativity and then all you’re doing is editing? But you’d rather do the creative part. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Exactly. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> But on the other hand, you know, it’s also the case that when you bring in… Like, let’s go back to regressions. I like to do statistical analysis. I think it’s really interesting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I’m mostly interested in the output. I have no interest in the calculation, and it’s boring. So, this makes me get to the interesting part much faster. And maybe when you’re writing, it’s a collaborator, right? I mean, maybe it’s not a replacement. It’s like another voice on your team.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And suddenly you’re getting a higher quality product, and it could be that you’re making a screenplay or writing an article, you’re writing a song, and suddenly it’s better for your collaboration with the AI, but they’re not actually taking kind of full control. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s the optimistic version here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That at least for a lot of jobs, some tasks will be automated, but other tasks won’t. And those tasks, those bottlenecks, will keep us humans busy and employed and maybe even fulfilled. And looking for these bottlenecks in our own jobs or industries, that is something that feels actionable. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Naturally, if there’s some bottleneck tasks that are slowing up the whole system, those are gonna have a lot of value.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>If you can continue to do those or do them relatively well, people will value that. You’ll get a lot of income, you’ll get a sustained job, based on those kinds of tasks. So, the question I think is, are there tasks that are bottleneck tasks that computers can’t do very well yet? That’s really where you should focus.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And in Ben’s view, assuming there will always be some role for humans, we should actually be rooting for AI to get really, really good at whatever it automates. To understand why, we first need to understand two opposing forces. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> So, the first is automation. Automation would be when a machine starts doing a task that we used to do as labor, humans.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think this is the force that a lot of people think of. They think about, okay, this machine can do more and more and more work, and so there’s obviously going to be just, like, less and less and less of the income or the share of the economy that’s going to be available to us non-machines.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. That’s the sort of obvious force that most people get. But there’s another force which is a little bit more subtle, and it has to do with the fact that if machines are taking over tasks, and they are really good at those tasks, right… And at some level they have to be good at those tasks, otherwise they wouldn’t be taking them over from labor.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But if they get very, very good at those tasks, then what happens is those tasks become very cheap, in the sense that whenever you flood a market with something, right? If I made anything abundant, its price will fall. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so what’s gonna happen if machines are really, really good at those tasks is the kinds of services they produce will become very inexpensive.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, what we really want if AI is gonna take over a lot of tasks, it’s very important that it not just slightly beat labor at those tasks. We want AI, if it’s gonna take over those tasks, to be really great at it, because then we’re gonna have an abundance of that output, and actually the prices fall and people end up being much better off in a real income sense.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, I was trying to come up with an example, and instead of it being, quite as theoretical, I was trying to think of something that maybe is already happening in the economy today so that we could sort of play out this idea, this thought experiment, and really understand why even us mere laborers really ought to be working, rooting for AI to get quite good at the tasks of ours that it takes over.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, I’m gonna read an example to you, and I am hoping that you can respond to it. Give me a sense of whether this is correct, and if so, what it means. If not, where I went wrong. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>‘Imagine that companies start replacing customer service professionals at call centers with AI. This is something that we already know is happening, like when you call your health insurance company to ask about coverage, or you ask your bank why a deposit hasn’t gone through, what have you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The person you talk to gets automated. They’re replaced by AI, and even if the AI isn’t cheap, they still cost a lot less than paying the salaries of fluent English speakers trained in customer service. So, one scenario is the AI is just ‘okay’ at this. It provides worse customer service than humans. People don’t always get their problems resolved.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Maybe they get frustrated, maybe they even get angry at the company. But the AI is still good enough that even though the company’s reputation might suffer a bit, the money they’re saving kind of makes it worth it. Maybe they come out a bit ahead. And this is your nightmare scenario as I understand it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, all these call center jobs get eliminated. Nobody really benefits except for the companies that might save a little money every year. Is that a fair depiction of the nightmare scenario?’\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Yes, because if the companies are only just saving a little bit of money, that’s a sign that the computers aren’t that much better at the task.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We get bad services. People lose their jobs. That’s an accurate version of the kind of nightmare scenario one would have in mind. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. Now, if the AI is really, really good at customer service, then eventually most of us do benefit. So, some people do lose their jobs, but they are able to move into others.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And meanwhile, the rest of us get our questions answered really quickly, really easily. We have more time in our day to do other things, and hopefully the products and the services from that company become less expensive because the firm is able to pass along those savings. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And as long as those workers who are displaced are able to find other kinds of jobs in this new economy, everyone’s income will eventually, be going up.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, if I want to go back to this farming example, it’s very easy for me to see that, you know, in the last two hundred years, let’s say, since half of America was a farmer, it’s very easy for me to see that life is a lot better now. You’re gonna live if you are born — you stand a much higher likelihood, you’re just going to enjoy a lot of things that our ancestors would not have been able to. But I think right now, a lot of people are feeling like life in general is not getting better. They’re kind of feeling like, the chances that my kid is going to have a better life than me are not that great.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, houses are getting more expensive. It’s more expensive to go to college. Like, I think a lot of people are feeling like they are just treading water. And so how does that square with this idea of incremental progress? Is it just that we are imagining the past to be better than it was? Or is it that maybe some of the things that are real pain points are because of these bottlenecks or something else?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> I would say that’s more to do with inequality, and where the benefits have been felt in this economy. And this goes way before artificial intelligence. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Going back to the ’70s for quite a long time, the median real household income was kind of stagnating in the United States.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, we had a lot of growth, but as I think people know, a lot of that increased value added in the economy every year has been captured by people who are pretty well off already. One of the concerns with AI, as we see, these billionaires, trillionaires starting to emerge, is that too much of the added value will be captured by those who own the companies or own the capital. So, I think that’s a real question. The other kind of inequality, which is actually the major kind of inequality that’s been at work in the United States, is within labor. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And what we’ve seen over time since the ’70s is a spreading where people who are in the upper educated professional classes have been capturing a lot of the growth, in income per capita\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>for themselves. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh, interesting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones: \u003c/strong>Whereas the median household has been struggling. Compared to history, we’ve seen relatively slow growth in real standards of living among the median household. I think when you think about why, Americans maybe not necessarily fully seeing these facts, but feeling them right? Feeling that maybe they put it on globalization, but that’s maybe not the right… But there’s some globalization, there’s a lot of automation, there’s a lot of technological change within the country. But feeling that somehow, these advances or this participation in the world economy, doesn’t seem like it’s making their lives better. And I think for many people, at least going back to the ’70s, there’s some truth in that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> In Ben’s view, much of the pessimism Americans feel about technological progress comes not from the technology itself but from how its gains have been distributed. But he thinks that at least some of this inequality, not the kind driven by tech billionaires, but the inequality within workers might actually decrease as AI automates white collar work. And to be very blunt, he does not share the average American’s concerns about AI making human labor obsolete.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So, I mean, a stat I ran across earlier this year, just 6% of Americans say workplace AI use will lead to more jobs in the long run, and you would just wholeheartedly disagree with that and say that, this might just be kind of a failure of imagination.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. I mean, you wouldn’t have imagined there was an ATM technician or a satellite engineer or a pilot before those things were created. And, I think it’s very hard to predict what’s gonna become easier, what’s gonna become hard, and that’s for the future to tell us. It’s gonna be unexpected and pretty interesting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But there’s nothing so far in history that would suggest that suddenly all labor could be replaced. And even if it were, I mean, just to be clear, I mean, if it were, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, let’s go there! \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Then the amount of output would be enormous, right? So, if you actually replaced all human labor and you had these efficient machines that could do everything, the amount of consumption you could have would be incredibly high. It would at that point become entirely an issue of equity and access to that income. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And, you know, that’s where governments can step in, right? And we can have redistributive policies. I mean, do you wanna just let a few capitalists own everything? I doubt that is a political equilibrium- with everyone starving and, like, three people are, you know, quadrillionaires. Maybe, this gets into dystopian scenarios —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, it does\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And it gets into various other things. And I’m not saying that’s not possible. We certainly see authoritarian behavior around the world that is problematic. It’s ultimately a question of our political process and the representation of voices who are being left out, or doing much worse because of technological change.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And, you know, if you’re making the pie much bigger through this kind of churn and technological advance, there’s more resources around. You should be able to compensate those who lost in some way and not have them live a life that is much harder for virtue of having been replaced by machines.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think, you know, in the United States, you have to be careful in both directions. Technological progress is inevitably about creative destruction, right? I mean, think of what Amazon has done, right? E-tail destroyed bricks-and-mortar bookstores first and a whole lot of other kinds of bricks and mortar, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But it is more efficient for a lot of people. Consumers like it. They get things delivered. It’s cheaper. You know, they get things faster. But if you owned a bookstore, it was terrible, right? And, so, how do we think about that as a society? Well, on one hand, if we let the people who are already kind of in charge resist creative destruction, then we don’t grow and we don’t advance, and then those people are kind of holding us back, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>On the other hand, if you just let creative destruction go with no kind of willy-nilly, with no compensation, which is pretty close to the American model, right? You got a lotta progress. You got a lotta churn. You get a lotta technological advance, but you’re gonna displace a lotta people. And so, at that point, you definitely need a very, at minimum, a very flexible labor market which allows people to reallocate into other jobs, and there are ways to have policy to facilitate that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Retraining, et cetera. But that’s not to sugarcoat anything here. I mean, if you’re in a rural area and the main employer goes down, reallocating to a new job probably means reallocating to a new place, leaving your family, leaving the region you know and all the culture that goes with that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s an extraordinarily painful experience. And whether that’s because of technological change or trade, you know, I think it’s on all of us and as citizens in a country to take that extremely seriously.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I think this question of how we as a society deploy and adapt to automation is one of the most important questions today. But before we can adapt, we need to understand. That’s what this show is trying to do, help more people, including me, make sense of things. So we have a lot more great conversations coming up with economists, scientists, experts in design and media, people whose work can help us understand this moment and maybe even peek into the future.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love. Life, Automated is a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. We’re distributed by KQED. Our show is produced by Jesse Dukes with help from Nathan Ray and Steven Jackson. Music by Steven Jackson, Q Shop, and Neutral Propulsion Laboratory.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
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"possible": {
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"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"pri-the-world": {
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"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
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"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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"reveal": {
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"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/",
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},
"rightnowish": {
"id": "rightnowish",
"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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"order": 16
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},
"science-friday": {
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