Rethinking AGI: Ideology vs. Pragmatism

The race to develop ever-more-powerful AI is creating an unstable dynamic. It could lead us toward either dystopian centralized control or uncontrollable chaos. But there's a third option: a narrow path where technological power is matched with responsibility at every step.

Sam Hammond is the chief economist at the Foundation for American Innovation. He brings a different perspective to this challenge than we do at CHT. Though he approaches AI from an innovation-first standpoint, we share a common mission on the biggest challenge facing humanity: finding and navigating this narrow path.

This episode dives deep into the challenges ahead: How will AI reshape our institutions? Is complete surveillance inevitable, or can we build guardrails around it? Can our 19th-century government structures adapt fast enough, or will they be replaced by a faster moving private sector? And perhaps most importantly: how do we solve the coordination problems that could determine whether we build AI as a tool to empower humanity or as a superintelligence that we can't control?

We're in the final window of choice before AI becomes fully entangled with our economy and society. This conversation explores how we might still get this right.

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

RECOMMENDED MEDIA 

Tristan’s TED talk on the Narrow Path

Sam’s 95 Theses on AI

Sam’s proposal for a Manhattan Project for AI Safety

Sam’s series on AI and Leviathan

The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson

Dario Amodei’s Machines of Loving Grace essay.

Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World by Deirdre McCloskey

The Paradox of Libertarianism by Tyler Cowen

Dwarkesh Patel’s interview with Kevin Roberts at the FAI’s annual conference

Further reading on surveillance with 6G

RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES

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

The Self-Preserving Machine: Why AI Learns to Deceive 

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

Decoding Our DNA: How AI Supercharges Medical Breakthroughs and Biological Threats with Kevin Esvelt

CORRECTIONS

Sam referenced a blog post titled “The Libertarian Paradox” by Tyler Cowen. The actual title is the “Paradox of Libertarianism.” 

Sam also referenced a blog post titled “The Collapse of Complex Societies” by Eli Dourado. The actual title is “A beginner’s guide to sociopolitical collapse.”