Ep. 1: How Nations can Succeed in the Age of AI? Feat. Daron Acemoglu

In the opening episode of The Great Tech Game podcast, host Anirudh Suri is joined by Daron Acemoglu to discuss how nations can succeed in the age of AI.

Daron Acemoglu is professor of economics at Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and bestselling author of How Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty (2012) and more recently Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (2023).

Acemoglu is one of the world’s foremost economists, but also one of the best thinkers about why nations succeed or fail and how technology, innovation and institutions shape our world. In this episode, Suri and Acemoglu have a wide-ranging conversation to set the stage for the rest of the podcast. They discuss Acemoglu’s books, dissect the concept of the Great Games in history, delve into the capabilities that are required to win across all Great Games, debate whether human creativity will remain relevant in the age of AI, and much more.

They draw out parallels between the pre-WWI Gilded Age era and today’s technology age. They explore the spectrum of techno-optimism and techno-pessimism, and tease out the nuances of the current phase of techno-optimism that is gripping large parts of the world. As inequality rises, they discuss how divergences amongst nations and within nations will shape our geopolitics and domestic politics. They discuss the state of democracy and the need for new institutions to manage the tech-driven world we live in. 

Acemoglu offers a detailed roadmap for how technology can be shaped and redirected and harnessed fully for humans. The episode concludes with Daron’s book recommendations for those interested in technology, geopolitics, economics and history. 

#Anirudh Suri: Managing Director, India Internet Fund; Author, The Great Tech Game: Shaping Geopolitics and the Destinies of Nations (HarperCollins, 2022); and Nonresident Scholar, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 

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To learn more about Daron Acemoglu and his work:

Website: https://mitsloan.mit.edu/faculty/directory/daron-acemoglu

Twitter: https://twitter.com/DAcemogluMIT

Bio: Daron Acemoglu is an Institute Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and also affiliated with the National Bureau Economic Research, and the Center for Economic Policy Research.

Chapters

00:00 - Highlights/ Snippets

01:06 - Intro about Daron Acemoglu and his books

02:07 - Why Nations Fail, according to Daron

04:53 - Joel Mokyr’s thesis on which nations succeed 

07:34 - History's Great Games: Looking at history to find clues for the future

09:25 - Capabilities required to win at The Great Tech Game today

12:20 - Impact of Generative AI on skills valued in 21st century

13:14 - Will human creativity remain relevant in the age of AI?

13:45 - Techno-optimism vs techno-pessimism

15:06 - Should we worship at the altar of Technology?

20:50 - Opportunities and risks of AI for India: India as a Tech Nation

23:13 - AI, Rising Inequality and Distribution of Power Globally 

25:23 - How to stop rising inequality?

31:40 - The view from other countries on the US-China geopolitical rivalry 

34:40 - The role of global and domestic institutions and state of democracy

36:46 - Daron’s key pointers for harnessing technology fully for humans

41:29 - How can humans adapt to the age of AI? 

45:06 - Daron’s book recommendations