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Speaker 1: We're witnessing a historical transformation in how we organize our societies,

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Speaker 1: our economies, and our politics. That is a premise for

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Speaker 1: today's conversation. I'm Asimazar. Welcome to the Exponentially Podcast. One

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Speaker 1: of the key assumptions behind this question is that the

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Speaker 1: really big turning points in history have been driven by technology.

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Speaker 1: We know that agriculture, the technology of food production, gave

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Speaker 1: birth to civilization. We know that Gutenberg's invention of the

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Speaker 1: printing press allowed ideas to travel faster and further than

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Speaker 1: ever before, transforming European societies. And we know that two

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years later, the invention of the first

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Speaker 1: commercial steam engine marked the beginning of the Industrial Revolution,

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Speaker 1: a revolution that would ultimately reshape global power. To understand

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Speaker 1: and if today's technologies are doing the same, I've come

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Speaker 1: to Stanford University to meet a historian. He's a world

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Speaker 1: expert on that intersection of economics, politics and technology, Professor

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Speaker 1: Neil Ferguson. This show is called Exponentially, and what we're

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Speaker 1: trying to investigate is the extent to which this series

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Speaker 1: of interconnected changes, particularly rapid technological change, but also the

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Speaker 1: climate crisis and things like pandemics that are all different

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Speaker 1: but somehow related, whether they are buzzing around in a

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Speaker 1: sort of febrile fever that might reflect some kind of

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Speaker 1: change in the way that we live our lives. Do

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Speaker 1: you see, as I do, complicated domains that are changing very,

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Speaker 1: very quickly, or are we overreading what we're seeing.

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Speaker 2: Well, if you went into the typical windowless room full

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Speaker 2: of professional chatter merchants from the various eats of the world,

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Speaker 2: the financial elite, the academic elite, the political elite, and

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Speaker 2: you ask that kind of question, I think the answers

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Speaker 2: would include, well, there are some huge paradigm shift happening

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Speaker 2: in the global climate that will have terrible consequences. There

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Speaker 2: are technological changes, particularly in the area of artificial intelligence,

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Speaker 2: that are exponential, with the rapid growth of large language models,

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Speaker 2: and it's all very scary. And somebody will say because

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Speaker 2: we're in a poly crisis and everything is happening all

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Speaker 2: at once, and this is unprecedented, which just means they

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Speaker 2: don't know any history. So let's just run a thought

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Speaker 2: experiment supposing you and I were having this conversation with

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Speaker 2: somewhat different technology in nineteen twenty three, rather right twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty three. I'm sure that there would be somebody in

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Speaker 2: the windowless room who would say, well, we've just had

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Speaker 2: a tremendous pandemic in nineteen eighteen nineteen and a huge conflict.

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Speaker 2: The world is being driven crazy by inflation, and and

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Speaker 2: there are these alarming breakthroughs in technology that are producing

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Speaker 2: moving pictures at cinema, and it feels like they would

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Speaker 2: have had some sense of impending disaster. And I think

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Speaker 2: we have to therefore guard against saying things that were

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Speaker 2: also being said one hundred years ago, and indeed might

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Speaker 2: have been said fifty years ago. And if you'd had

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Speaker 2: a conversation like this in nineteen seventy three, you would

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Speaker 2: have all kinds of reasons to think that the world

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Speaker 2: was going to hell in a hand cast. So I

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Speaker 2: think the first thing to do is beware of assuming

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Speaker 2: that the year you happen to be in is hugely

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Speaker 2: historically significant.

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Speaker 3: Well it might not be.

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Speaker 1: Well, every year in a sense is unprecedented. Unprecedented things

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Speaker 1: are actually quite quite common in life.

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Speaker 2: And most of the things that are happening in this

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Speaker 2: particular year aren't drastically different from the things that struck

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Speaker 2: people as worrying fifty years ago or one hundred years ago.

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Speaker 3: So I'll dissent a bit from.

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Speaker 2: Conventional wisdom by trying to highlight the things that I

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Speaker 2: think really are in autance about now, because most of

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Speaker 2: the things we attach significance to terminal not to be important.

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Speaker 2: In the early seventies, people thought a huge population crisis was.

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Speaker 3: Coming, and this was the dominant view.

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Speaker 1: If I can jump in though, if we look back

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Speaker 1: over the long arc of history, we can see moments

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Speaker 1: where there were these paradigm shifts. You can see England.

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Speaker 1: The economy of England looks very, very different in seventeen

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Speaker 1: fifty to how it looked one hundred and fifty years

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Speaker 1: earlier before the discovery and exploitation of coal. If we

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Speaker 1: look at the structure of power and economies in Europe

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Speaker 1: in the two hundred years after the printing press, they

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Speaker 1: look quite different to how they looked just one hundred

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Speaker 1: years before the printing press. There are perhaps not annual moments,

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Speaker 1: but there are a dozen where we can start to

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Speaker 1: say these look like turning points, so we know they

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Speaker 1: exist in history.

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Speaker 2: You've mentioned two, and you'll struggle to come up with five.

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Speaker 2: Because the Industrial Revolution is one of the very rare

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Speaker 2: moments where human history resembles the hockey stick. There is

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Speaker 2: a really exponential change in economic life. It starts, of

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Speaker 2: all places, in the British Isles in the eighteenth century,

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Speaker 2: and it spreads gradually to the rest of the world,

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Speaker 2: and it involves a massive enhancement of human productivity through technology.

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Speaker 2: The printing press is the thing that transforms communication in

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Speaker 2: the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Again, it happens in Western

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Speaker 2: Europe and then gradually spreads to the rest of the world.

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Speaker 2: So let's ask ourselves, is it plausible that something like

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Speaker 2: that has happened in our time? And the answer is

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Speaker 2: it has because the Internet has had about the same

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Speaker 2: impact in our lifetimes as the printing press had over

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Speaker 2: a more prolonged period.

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Speaker 1: How do you measure the impact of the internet.

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Speaker 2: If you simply compare the cost of communication. It was

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Speaker 2: reduced as much by the Internet as it was by

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Speaker 2: the printing press. It's as big a transformation in the

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Speaker 2: ease of communication. So that has happened, and in a way,

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Speaker 2: it's sort of waching some natural frontier points and diminishing returns.

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Speaker 1: Will run out of people connect We almost.

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Speaker 3: Shift happened. We're really looking back on it now.

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Speaker 1: There's something else that I think is quite interesting about

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Speaker 1: the spread of the Internet, because when it started to spread,

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Speaker 1: the idea was that it would energize local democracy, it

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Speaker 1: would energize the individual, it would give us all a voice,

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Speaker 1: and up until the point of the Arab Spring, you

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Speaker 1: could make that case. And a decade on we've seen

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Speaker 1: those that democracy didn't take root, and we've also seen

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Speaker 1: that these new non state actors, in the form of

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Speaker 1: the platforms, have found ways of sequestering the democratic capability

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Speaker 1: of the Internet into something that doesn't look too dissimilar

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Speaker 1: to mass media with a little hint of all.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think the same kind of disappointment arose with

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Speaker 2: the rise of the printing press. I mean, there certainly

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Speaker 2: was a moment when it seemed as if the advent

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Speaker 2: of very cheap printed books would allow Christian doctrine to

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Speaker 2: spread everywhere very rapidly, and this was very exciting. But

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Speaker 2: what in fact happened was that one Martin Luther started

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Speaker 2: to argue for improvements in Western Christendom.

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Speaker 3: You had about one hundred plus.

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Speaker 2: Years of very violent religious warfare, and in the same way,

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Speaker 2: we thought everything would be awesome if everybody was connected

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Speaker 2: on network platforms Google, Amazon, and the rest. It took

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Speaker 2: us a few years to realize that there might be

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Speaker 2: downsides to much enhanced into connectivity, that if we'd only

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Speaker 2: studied the history of the printing press more thoroughly, we

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Speaker 2: wouldn't have been surprised to find the polarization and other

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Speaker 2: pathologies that have arisen from the rise of the internet.

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Speaker 2: So I think that kind of thing illustrates why you

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Speaker 2: need to study history if you're not to misunderstand the

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Speaker 2: paradigm shifts of your time. The thing that I would

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Speaker 2: add that might turn out to be comparable is the

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Speaker 2: rise of artificial intelligence right exactly, And that does feel

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Speaker 2: like something that's really transa well.

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Speaker 1: It looks like it's a technology that could dramatically improve productivity.

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Speaker 1: So when we go back to England in the seventeenth

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Speaker 1: and eighteenth nineteenth century, you saw the start and then

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Speaker 1: the deployment of machines that looked at human work and

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Speaker 1: magnified it, multiplied it. And when we start to look

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Speaker 1: at these very very early large language models, they've only

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Speaker 1: been publicly available for a matter of months, and we're

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Speaker 1: already seeing how knowledge workers who make up a very

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Speaker 1: large portion, certainly of Western countries employment bases, are able

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Speaker 1: to use them to magnify their work. So I do

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Speaker 1: wonder about whether artificial intelligence has some of the characteristics

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Speaker 1: of the kind of technology that can be a pivotal

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Speaker 1: point in our development.

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Speaker 3: Well, let's hope.

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Speaker 2: So, I mean, that's certainly plausible when we look at

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Speaker 2: something like alpha fold, which has allowed a far far

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Speaker 2: more rapid analysis of proteins than was possible before. And

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Speaker 2: I think in medical science the case is already clearly

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Speaker 2: proven that there are huge benefits.

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Speaker 1: It could be that given that we have this productivity

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Speaker 1: enhancing technology that is AI, that has come off the

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Speaker 1: back of this transformative communications network that's the Internet, we

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Speaker 1: also have radical improvements in certain biotechnologies, and we have

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Speaker 1: a fundamental shift and the way the energy system is

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Speaker 1: working as we move from extractive sources through to renewable sources.

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Speaker 1: And these renewable mean.

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Speaker 3: Other extractive resources, because renewables involve.

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Speaker 1: Extraction, but the ratio of extraction to useful energy is

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Speaker 1: much much more in favor of renewables than it is

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Speaker 1: with oil and gas. And that feels like the energy

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Speaker 1: system could also change. So there could be the ingredients

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Speaker 1: of a pivot point of a kind that we've only

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Speaker 1: seen a couple of times previously in history.

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Speaker 2: Let's ask what the driving forces will be. The world

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Speaker 2: has propelled forward and has been for thousands of years

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Speaker 2: by great power.

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Speaker 3: Competition's right, and that is the.

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Speaker 2: Thing that drives innovation right now across the board, whether

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Speaker 2: it's in solar panels or in artificial intelligence, it is

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Speaker 2: a competition which is intensifying between two superparers, the United

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Speaker 2: States and a communist led superpar Now is this standard

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Speaker 2: sound familiar to does?

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Speaker 3: So?

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Speaker 2: What is really significant about this historical moment is that

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Speaker 2: we are in the first inning, the early phase of

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Speaker 2: Cold War II. That is going to drive all the

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Speaker 2: things that we've talked about, and it will not necessarily

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Speaker 2: drive these changes in directions that are benign. That the

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Speaker 2: big technological advance of Cold War one was of course,

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Speaker 2: nuclear weapons, and I don't believe for a minute that

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Speaker 2: we can have a Cold War two without a similar risk.

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Speaker 2: And in fact, you can already see how cold War

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Speaker 2: two is repeating cold War one in a number of

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Speaker 2: key respects, one of which is it has its hot aspects.

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Speaker 2: There's a Hot War going on right now in Ukraine,

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Speaker 2: which you can think of as analogist to the Hot

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Speaker 2: War and career the career fifty. The Cuban missile crisis

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Speaker 2: in this Cold War will be a Taiwan semiconductor crisis,

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Speaker 2: And in that sense, I think if you try to

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Speaker 2: imagine yourself as a future historian, you'll be writing about

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Speaker 2: how the US China rivalry, both ideological and technological, produced

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Speaker 2: moments of great risk before the superpowers found out a

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Speaker 2: way of managing it better.

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Speaker 1: I think it's always the case, though, that breakthroughs in

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Speaker 1: technology will lead to great power competition. I mean the

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Speaker 1: square rigged sales resulted in those expeditions from the Iberian

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Speaker 1: Peninsula that started that wave of colonization. Steel and larger

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Speaker 1: bore guns turned into competition in Europe when we got

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Speaker 1: to World War one way around.

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Speaker 2: Actually assume it's actually the competition that leads to the

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Speaker 2: technological development. The reason that there's so much more technological

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Speaker 2: innovation in Europe than in China from around fifteen hundred

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Speaker 2: is that there are relatively.

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Speaker 3: Evenly matched states.

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Speaker 2: Engaged in a competition, whereas it's not like that in China,

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Speaker 2: where there is one very large empire, and it doesn't

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Speaker 2: really have to wage war with peers. Peer to peer

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Speaker 2: conflict incentivize European states to innovate with shipbuilding and particularly

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Speaker 2: to innovate with artillery. And in the same way, it's

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Speaker 2: clearly the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet

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Speaker 2: Union that propels innovation with nuclear weapons. And in the

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Speaker 2: same way today, I think the United States and China

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Speaker 2: are in a race with respect to artificial intelligence, quantum computing,

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Speaker 2: and a whole range of other technologies, because once you're

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Speaker 2: in that great part competition, you cannot afford to lose

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Speaker 2: technological leadership.

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Speaker 1: But the current petition between China and the US started

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Speaker 1: with civil applications of these technologies, so it's been a

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Speaker 1: case of plowshares into swords. We were not developing AI

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Speaker 1: or genome sequencing first and foremost for military advantage. We

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Speaker 1: were developing them for their innovation capacities, which would lead

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Speaker 1: to economic advantage.

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Speaker 2: And Chinese as scientists and American scientists were cooperating in

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Speaker 2: all kinds of domains in a relatively short space of

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Speaker 2: time up until I guess She's in pin came to

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Speaker 2: power in China and Donald Trump came to parer in

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Speaker 2: the United States. People in the United States really underestimated

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Speaker 2: the extent to which almost all the technologies were potentially

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Speaker 2: dual use that as I say, they had civilian but

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Speaker 2: also military usages. They underestimated the extent of which their

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Speaker 2: own military hardware US military hardware had Chinese components.

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Speaker 1: Something else happened between two thousand and seven and about

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Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, which was in technology, things that we now

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Speaker 1: called AI went from being slightly mundane and not usable

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Speaker 1: to suddenly quite useful.

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Speaker 2: I think historically, technological innovation sometimes seems like its own

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Speaker 2: story that's somewhat separate from everything else. In the nineteen thirties,

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Speaker 2: the world was in the grip of the worst depression

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Speaker 2: in modern economic history, but if you look closely, quite

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Speaker 2: a lot of innovation was happening in the US economy

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Speaker 2: that would turn out to be enormously consequential. Right There

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Speaker 2: was actually growth again in.

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Speaker 3: The nineteen seventies.

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Speaker 2: Most people thought that the world was in stagflation, but

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Speaker 2: that was actually the decade when Microsoft and Absolutely were founded.

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Speaker 1: And Intel was building chips for the very first time

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Speaker 1: and so on.

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Speaker 2: And that turned out to really matter in cold War

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Speaker 2: one because the Soviets were able to steal and copy

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Speaker 2: the technology of nuclear weapons, also space flight, but when

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Speaker 2: it came to copying microprocessors, they utterly failed. Even though

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Speaker 2: they could steal them, they couldn't work out how really

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Speaker 2: to replicate Moor's law. And I think in that sense

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Speaker 2: what happened in the nineteen seventies in Silicon Valley turned.

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Speaker 3: Out to be strategically hugely.

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Speaker 2: Important once the Soviets realized that the next generation of

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Speaker 2: weapons would depend on microprocessors and computers. That's why from

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Speaker 2: a technological point of view, they couldn't possibly win Cold

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Speaker 2: War one.

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Speaker 3: That Cold War two, I think has similar characteristics.

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Speaker 2: It's going to be decided by at the technological frontier

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Speaker 2: at the moment. There are two respects in which I

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Speaker 2: think this is much closer than Cold War one. Number one, Obviously,

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Speaker 2: the Chinese economy is bigger than the Soviet economy. Ever

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Speaker 2: was I mean, it was forty four percent of USGDB

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Speaker 2: at peak and falling away from the mid nineteen seventies.

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Speaker 2: China overtook the US in twenty fourteen on a purchasing

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Speaker 2: power parity basis, It's not that far behind on a

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Speaker 2: current dollar basis. So that's point one point two. Just

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Speaker 2: the way that the Chinese economy works, because it has

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Speaker 2: a very large and dynamic private sector, is more likely

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Speaker 2: to use competitive innovation than the soviets of a could.

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Speaker 1: But there are a couple of things that we could

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Speaker 1: pick up, and one is that the dynamics of Moore's law,

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Speaker 1: which was this relationship that saw silicon chips getting cheaper

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Speaker 1: and cheaper and cheaper every year, or you were getting

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Speaker 1: more processing banged for your dollar spent, was a highly

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Speaker 1: socialized process. It required a lot of competitive firms fundamentally

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Speaker 1: collaborating across an ecosystem, not just in California, but in

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Speaker 1: many other parts of the world. And that is a

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Speaker 1: characteristic of a free operating market, which it doesn't feel

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Speaker 1: exists in China, and that within China they don't have

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Speaker 1: the full stack of market participants when it comes to

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Speaker 1: the semiconductor industry that you need. I think the second

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Speaker 1: challenge I would raise is really about the spirit of research,

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Speaker 1: which ultimately these things are built off really really basic science.

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Speaker 1: The US still has a lead in pure research, and

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Speaker 1: there are academic freedoms that exist in the US that

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Speaker 1: don't exist in China because the lines of research are

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Speaker 1: not clearly drawn. For scientists, there are lines they cannot cross,

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Speaker 1: but they're not told, ay priori what they might be.

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Speaker 3: Well, let me come back at you.

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Speaker 2: In both points, the most high end semiconductors are not

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Speaker 2: manufactured in the United States, as you well know.

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Speaker 3: They're manufactured in Taiwan, which is an.

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Speaker 2: Island that, according to the People's Republic of China, is

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Speaker 2: part of China, and its contested status in that sense

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Speaker 2: is going to be even more explosive than the contested

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Speaker 2: status of Cuba was in the early nineteen sixties. The

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Speaker 2: second point is that scientific talent is quite widely distributed globally,

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Speaker 2: and it's produced in greater volumes.

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Speaker 3: In China at this point than it is in the

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Speaker 3: United States.

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Speaker 2: Now, that really didn't matter when the United States was

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Speaker 2: able to attract the.

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Speaker 3: Talent from all over the world.

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Speaker 2: But one of the consequences of the rise of Cold

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Speaker 2: War two is that process has really broken down. Legal

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Speaker 2: immigration into the United States for talented people has come

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Speaker 2: to a near standstill. So the US is throwing away

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Speaker 2: its opportunity to win Cold War two, and the way

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Speaker 2: to win it is just keep importing the talent, including

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Speaker 2: the talent from China, and then the Chinese can't possibly compete.

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Speaker 2: The Chinese don't have the chance to import talent. Pose

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Speaker 2: nobody wants to emigrate to the People's Republic of China. Surprisingly,

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Speaker 2: so this is a really critical point which brings us

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Speaker 2: to something we haven't talked about yet, which is super

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Speaker 2: important demographics and migration.

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Speaker 1: And your point about demographics is that many countries are

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Speaker 1: in retrogaatee, not just Japan, not just Italy, but also

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Speaker 1: China and large parts of Eastern Europe are well below

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Speaker 1: the replacement.

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Speaker 2: The population of China could fall by as much as

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Speaker 2: half between now and the end of this century.

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Speaker 3: That is a.

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Speaker 2: Plausible projection from the United Nations, if you assume that

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Speaker 2: the fertility rate doesn't go back up. Even the median

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Speaker 2: projection from the UN Population Prospects says that the population

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Speaker 2: of China will fall by about a third. How can

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Speaker 2: the Chinese economy possibly have sustained growth at even five

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Speaker 2: percent with a shrinking population, a shrinking workforce.

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Speaker 3: A twenty nine percent of the economy is building terwer blocks.

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Speaker 2: But these are terr blocks for nobody, and I don't

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Speaker 2: think we're thinking enough about what that means.

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Speaker 1: But we can perhaps bring in one of the technologies

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Speaker 1: we talked about earlier, which was these AI technologies, because

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Speaker 1: of course they are productivity magnifying technologies, at least that's

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Speaker 1: a theory. So let's assume for the discussion that they

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Speaker 1: allow one person to do the work of three or four.

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Speaker 1: That might suggest that countries like China or Italy should

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Speaker 1: invest more heavily in these AI technologies because they are

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Speaker 1: running out of human workers. So could a country like China,

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Speaker 1: with its investments in robotics and AI, use those technologies

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Speaker 1: to in some way defray the downward pressure of this

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Speaker 1: demographics that they're having to deal with.

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Speaker 2: They are clearly in China investing with that in mind.

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Speaker 2: But I'm not sure that that solves the problem, because

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Speaker 2: I think the problem is somewhat more complex than we

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Speaker 2: don't have enough people to assemble the electric vehicles. There

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Speaker 2: are a couple of other aspects to this which I

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Speaker 2: think are interesting. One is that if you have a

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Speaker 2: population which is aging, you have to be supported by

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Speaker 2: a relatively smaller working population.

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Speaker 3: There are just distributional problems.

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Speaker 2: Right twenty years ago, and I said the politics of

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Speaker 2: the twenty fourth century will be about generational conflict, not

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Speaker 2: class conflict, and we're still at an early stage of

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Speaker 2: the generational conflicts that are going to play out. As

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Speaker 2: younger people say to themselves, wait a second, I seem

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Speaker 2: to be having a pretty hard time in order to

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Speaker 2: support the older generation in very prolonged retirement.

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Speaker 1: There are strong echoes of that in the US with

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Speaker 1: college debt burden, in the UK with the cost of housing,

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Speaker 1: and in France and in Italy as well. And China

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Speaker 1: has got a huge one coming.

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Speaker 2: It's going to age as rapidly as Japan has, but

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Speaker 2: at a lower level of per capita GDP. I think

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Speaker 2: there are all kinds of really quite unforeseeable problems. So

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Speaker 2: I think that that doesn't get solved by robots. And

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Speaker 2: I think there's another problem for aging societies. I mean,

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Speaker 2: it's the young people who have the cool ideas. And

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Speaker 2: if you have an aging population, it seems to me

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Speaker 2: that by definition, you will be less innovative in relative terms.

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Speaker 1: So historically, are there examples that you can think of

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Speaker 1: where nations or states of some sort have really bet

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Speaker 1: hard on technology to get them out out of one

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Speaker 1: of these quite existential threats.

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Speaker 2: No, this is new territory because the problem in the

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Speaker 2: past was altogether different. Human life expectancy, we forget, this

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Speaker 2: was pretty short for most of history, and so you know,

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Speaker 2: people didn't feel young at fifty nine. I still kid

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Speaker 2: myself that I'm relatively youthful, at least physically.

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Speaker 1: You're about to take up a new sport in golf,

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Speaker 1: I understand.

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Speaker 2: Well, I don't regard golf as a sport, to be honest,

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Speaker 2: but yeah, it's the kind of thing you do when

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Speaker 2: you hit sixties. But the interesting thing is that all

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Speaker 2: the times of technological innovation that we look back on

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Speaker 2: as we have in this conversation happened when societies were

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Speaker 2: extraordinarly youthful by our standards, and the elderly were a

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Speaker 2: really small share of the population.

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Speaker 1: So where have we got to. There are some new technologies,

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Speaker 1: the internet and artificial intelligence. They feel like a paradigm shift.

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Speaker 1: There are some more linear trends, demographics being a key

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Speaker 1: untold story, and these together are driving a real Cold

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Speaker 1: War two between between China and America. Some scholars argue

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Speaker 1: that in many cases where great powers, especially if they're

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Speaker 1: ideological differences that are hard to reconcile, find themselves competing,

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Speaker 1: they will fall into a war.

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Speaker 2: I think if we're going to rerun this and have

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Speaker 2: Cold War two, we should not assume that we're guaranteed

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Speaker 2: to avoid a hot war. Both societies in their different

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Speaker 2: ways of wrestling with problems of aging that were not

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Speaker 2: familiar to Cold War one participants. The technologies include the

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Speaker 2: old ones nuclear weapons, but there are a bunch of

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Speaker 2: new ones.

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Speaker 1: Too, hypersonics, AIS size.

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Speaker 2: AI, satellite warfare is going to happen on a larger scale.

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Speaker 2: So I have to say that I agree with Henry

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Speaker 2: Kissinger who said to me in an interview, not unlike

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Speaker 2: this last year, cold War II will be more dangerous

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Speaker 2: than Cold War One. That is a very sobering fault

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Speaker 2: to me.

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Speaker 1: So after the end of World War Two, we developed

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Speaker 1: a whole set of new institutions from the United Nations

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Speaker 1: through two things like the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. If

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Speaker 1: you look at the environment that we move into now,

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Speaker 1: is it a case of having to invent new institutions

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Speaker 1: or is it a case of transforming the ones that

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Speaker 1: we have.

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Speaker 2: The United Nations, when you look closely at its record,

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Speaker 2: had a structural problem from the outset, namely the veto.

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Speaker 3: Power of the permanent members permanent the permanent.

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Speaker 2: Members included the United States and the Soviet Union, and

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Speaker 2: so they took turrents to exercise that veto, which meant

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Speaker 2: that the UN didn't actually do terribly much that was

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Speaker 2: consequential when it came to avoiding conflict, which is why

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Speaker 2: there were a lot of small and not so small

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Speaker 2: wars during Cold War one. That's right, So I think

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Speaker 2: we need to recognize that the UN never really was

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Speaker 2: a terrifically powerful force for preserving peace, that it has

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Speaker 2: been exposed very badly by the war in Ukraine.

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Speaker 3: And let's go down the list. How about the IMF?

439
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Speaker 2: How is the International Monetary Fund doing when it comes

440
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Speaker 2: to financial stability?

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Speaker 3: Can I give an F grade?

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Speaker 2: It has, I think, not perform brilliantly other than perhaps

443
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:06,960
Speaker 2: at data collection, not at projection over the last twenty years.

444
00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:10,520
Speaker 2: And I'll keep going. The World Trade Organization's basically broken.

445
00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:12,840
Speaker 2: It's not clear that it can be revived. And so

446
00:25:12,920 --> 00:25:15,080
Speaker 2: you asked yourself, well, hang on a second. If these

447
00:25:15,119 --> 00:25:19,119
Speaker 2: institutions are kind of dysfunctional, what was it that generated

448
00:25:19,160 --> 00:25:23,400
Speaker 2: at least some piece and prosperity after nineteen forty five,

449
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:26,040
Speaker 2: and I think the answer is in fact line systems

450
00:25:26,119 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 2: that deterred the Soviets from the more.

451
00:25:31,640 --> 00:25:32,520
Speaker 3: Crazy of the plan.

452
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:36,440
Speaker 2: So fundamentally, NATO NATO mattered much more than the UN

453
00:25:36,520 --> 00:25:39,720
Speaker 2: and much more than the European institutions when it came

454
00:25:39,760 --> 00:25:40,600
Speaker 2: to preserving peace.

455
00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:43,400
Speaker 3: Therefore, if we want to ask.

456
00:25:43,240 --> 00:25:46,000
Speaker 2: The question how can we avoid World War three, it

457
00:25:46,040 --> 00:25:48,480
Speaker 2: is going to be very important that the United States

458
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:53,280
Speaker 2: builds a version of NATO for Transpacific relations.

459
00:25:53,520 --> 00:25:54,480
Speaker 1: Interests are eternal.

460
00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:57,439
Speaker 2: I think, well, this sounds like Henry Kistener's talking right

461
00:25:57,480 --> 00:26:00,160
Speaker 2: back at me, but I think in practice this this

462
00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:03,520
Speaker 2: is where the action is. Can the United States create

463
00:26:03,640 --> 00:26:08,239
Speaker 2: a sufficiently strong network of relationships that China can be

464
00:26:08,320 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 2: deterred from taking the kind of action that could escalate

465
00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:12,880
Speaker 2: towards War three.

466
00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 1: But there were other dimensions of risk that you talked about,

467
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:20,240
Speaker 1: and one was artificial intelligence. And even in their non

468
00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:23,960
Speaker 1: weaponized state, because they're dual use, they can still be

469
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:25,000
Speaker 1: quite dangerous.

470
00:26:25,080 --> 00:26:28,840
Speaker 3: Just in the same way that the Peace of West failure.

471
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:32,640
Speaker 2: Devised the set of rules to stop religious warfare tearing

472
00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:36,919
Speaker 2: Europe apart interminably. Why should we not now devise a

473
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:42,280
Speaker 2: convention to limit the use of these new and powerful tools,

474
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:44,960
Speaker 2: especially now when the United States appears to have a

475
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:47,760
Speaker 2: pretty clear lead when it comes to large language models.

476
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:51,160
Speaker 2: Just as it was in the interests of the United

477
00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:53,960
Speaker 2: States to have a non proliferation treaty before the Soviets

478
00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:56,560
Speaker 2: overtook the US.

479
00:26:56,640 --> 00:26:58,679
Speaker 1: Back then, of course, even the Swedes had a nuclear

480
00:26:58,720 --> 00:26:59,880
Speaker 1: weapons program.

481
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:02,560
Speaker 3: Imagine a world without the non proliferation treaty. It would

482
00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:03,320
Speaker 3: have blown up by.

483
00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 1: There right absolutely, and the Swedes would have reconquered Finland.

484
00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:09,840
Speaker 3: In their dreams, in their dream The.

485
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:12,840
Speaker 1: Premise of today's conversation was that if we look back

486
00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 1: on these few years, we'll realize that we were living

487
00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:20,600
Speaker 1: through a paradigm shift that was a new age. How

488
00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:23,520
Speaker 1: do you assess that premise? Is that something that is

489
00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:25,920
Speaker 1: now going to become reality.

490
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:27,679
Speaker 3: Not in the way that most people think.

491
00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:31,240
Speaker 2: I think we're at that stage of Cold War two

492
00:27:31,280 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 2: where most people don't fully realize the implications of there

493
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:39,280
Speaker 2: being only two AI superpars, only two superpars that could

494
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:43,480
Speaker 2: conceivably have quantum computers, and that that's the real architecture

495
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:46,560
Speaker 2: of the rest of our lives. They'll continue to be

496
00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 2: high levels of trade between the United States. You can't

497
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:53,240
Speaker 2: decouple theseoities entirely, but it'll just be much more selective

498
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:55,960
Speaker 2: and there will be things that won't be tradeable. There

499
00:27:56,040 --> 00:27:58,239
Speaker 2: is a lot of change coming on the back of

500
00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:01,639
Speaker 2: this new Cold War, and it will affect everything. So

501
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:04,920
Speaker 2: even the climate issue inevitably will become part of Cold

502
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:08,119
Speaker 2: War two because you can't avoid climate change if you

503
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:11,760
Speaker 2: can't constrain China, So everything ends up being a part

504
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:15,479
Speaker 2: of this great geopolitical struggle. This illustrates something that is

505
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:20,440
Speaker 2: very important. Indeed, something's changed because technology changes. The world

506
00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:23,000
Speaker 2: was changed by the printing press, changed by nuclear weapons,

507
00:28:23,119 --> 00:28:26,280
Speaker 2: is being changed by the Internet and AI. But certain

508
00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:30,000
Speaker 2: things remain constant because the logic of power is unaffected

509
00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:32,639
Speaker 2: by technology. So I think for me, the key to

510
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:36,960
Speaker 2: understanding the future is you have to combine historical knowledge.

511
00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 3: With a grasp of what's new, what's technologically different.

512
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:43,600
Speaker 2: There's a paradigm shift happening in technology, no question, but

513
00:28:44,160 --> 00:28:49,520
Speaker 2: the age old relationships between powers, those don't change. You

514
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:51,720
Speaker 2: have to understand both these domains or you will be

515
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:54,120
Speaker 2: catnapping Neil.

516
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:56,440
Speaker 1: I think it's very appropriate that we're in a windowless

517
00:28:56,480 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 1: room having this discussion about Cold War II and this

518
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:01,240
Speaker 1: paradigm shift. Thank you so much for making the time.

519
00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:01,800
Speaker 3: Thank you. As a.

520
00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:10,120
Speaker 1: Reflecting on my conversation with Neil, I'm struck by how

521
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:14,040
Speaker 1: many factors, from global competition to demographic shifts, and of

522
00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:19,720
Speaker 1: course rapidly evolving technologies are all reinforcing this state of uncertainty.

523
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 1: Is this a sign of fundamental change in the nature

524
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:26,520
Speaker 1: of human affairs? Technological progress is certainly speeding up, but

525
00:29:26,600 --> 00:29:30,040
Speaker 1: the collaboration made possible by the Internet is being replaced

526
00:29:30,080 --> 00:29:34,040
Speaker 1: by competition between two great powers China and the United States.

527
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:36,880
Speaker 1: So our degree with Neil that we're seeing flickering of

528
00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:39,760
Speaker 1: a second Cold War. But I also think something more

529
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:42,480
Speaker 1: fundamental is happening, a shift to a world built on

530
00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 1: exponential technologies, with many new powerbrokers, not just the nation state.

531
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:54,320
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the exponentially podcast. If you enjoy

532
00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:57,360
Speaker 1: the show, please leave a review or rating. It really

533
00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:00,720
Speaker 1: does help others find us the Exponentially. The podcast is

534
00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:04,680
Speaker 1: presented by me Azeem Azar. The sound designer is Will Horrocks.

535
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:07,880
Speaker 1: The research was led by Chloe Ippah and music composed

536
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:11,320
Speaker 1: by Emily Green and John Zarcone. The show is produced

537
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 1: by Frederick Cassella, Maria Garrilov and me Azeem Azar Special

538
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:18,920
Speaker 1: thanks to Sage Bauman, Jeff Grocott and Magnus Henrikson. The

539
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 1: executive producers are Andrew Barden, Adam Kamiski, and Kyle Kramer.

540
00:30:23,320 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 1: David Ravella is the managing editor. Exponentially was created by

541
00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:29,280
Speaker 1: Frederick Cassella and is an Eat the Pie I plus

542
00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:33,160
Speaker 1: one limited production in association with Bloomberg LC