Importance of Future Predictions and New Ways of Knowing

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Making predictions about the future is challenging, and speaking with complete confidence is not advisable. Despite this, there is substantial reason to believe that a particular event is significant historically. It can be considered the first major new way of knowing since the invention of the scientific method, which is a powerful and existential development.

Yascha Mounk and Larry Summers also discuss the promise and perils of artificial intelligence.

Larry Summers is an economist, the Charles W. Eliot University Professor and director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School, and a member of the board of directors of OpenAI. Summers is the former President of Harvard University, the former Secretary of the Treasury under Bill Clinton, and was a director of the National Economic Council under Barack Obama.

In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Larry Summers discuss how universities can re-commit to pursuing truth and protecting academic freedom; how current economic indicators contrast with how many people actually experience the economy; and how Biden can improve his odds for re-election.

This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

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