673. The World’s Progress Has Stagnated & AI Might Not Change That, with Carl Benedikt Frey

What does the history of human innovation tell us about the current moment we’re in? It tells us that, despite the computational and AI gains of the last few decades, the world’s progress is a bit flat. Why? Carl Benedikt Frey is an associate professor of AI & Work at the University of Oxford and directs the Future of Work Programme at Oxford. His latest book, How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations, examines the world’s start and stall relationship with progress over the last thousand years. In this episode, Carl and Greg dive into the history of how centralized and decentralized systems have impacted the world’s technological innovation. They contrast China’s earlier technological lead and bureaucratic state-building with Europe’s decentralized politics that enabled the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, Prussia’s critical role in advancing progress, and why despite the breakthroughs with AI, the world could be facing an era of less progress and...