Your Undivided Attention

No matter where you sit within the economy, whether you're a CEO or an entry level worker, everyone's feeling uneasy about AI and the future of work. Uncertainty about career paths, job security, and life planning makes thinking about the future anxiety inducing. In this episode, Daniel Barcay sits down with two experts on AI and work to examine what's actually happening in today's labor market and what's likely coming in the near-term. We explore the crucial question: Can we create conditions for AI to enrich work and careers, or are we headed toward widespread economic instability?

Ethan Mollick is a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he studies innovation, entrepreneurship, and the future of work. He's the author of Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI.

Molly Kinder is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where she researches the intersection of AI, work, and economic opportunity. She recently led research with the Yale Budget Lab examining AI's real-time impact on the labor market.

RECOMMENDED MEDIA

Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick

Further reading on Molly’s study with the Yale Budget Lab

The “Canaries in the Coal Mine” Study from Stanford’s Digital Economy Lab

Ethan’s substack One Useful Thing

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CORRECTIONS

1. Ethan said that in 2022, experts believed there was a 2.5% chance that ChatGPT would be able to win the Math Olympiad. However, that was only among forecasters with more general knowledge (the exact number was 2.3%). Among domain expert forecasters, the odds were an 8.6% chance.
2. Ethan claimed that over 50% of Americans say that they’re using AI at work. We weren’t able to independently verify this claim and most studies we found showed lower rates of reported use of AI with American workers. There are reports from other countries, notably Denmark, which show higher rates of AI use.
3. Ethan indirectly quoted the Walmart CEO Doug McMillon as having a goal to “keep all 3 million employees and to figure out new ways to expand what they use.” In fact, McMillon’s language on AI has been much softer, saying that “AI is expected to create a number of jobs at Walmart, which will offset those that it replaces.” Additionally, Walmart has 2.1 million employees, not 3.

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This week, we’re bringing you Tristan’s conversation with Tobias Rose-Stockwell on his podcast “Into the Machine.”  Tobias is a designer, writer, and technologist and the author of the book “The Outrage Machine.”

Tobias and Tristan had a critical, sobering, and surprisingly hopeful conversation about the current path we’re on AI and the choices we could make today to forge a different one. This interview clearly lays out the stakes of the AI race and helps to imagine a more humane AI future—one that is within reach, if we have the courage to make it a reality.

If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to check out and subscribe to “Into the Machine”:

YouTube: Into the Machine Show

Spotify: Into the Machine

Apple Podcasts: Into the Machine

Substack: Into the Machine

You may have noticed on this podcast, we have been trying to focus a lot more on solutions. Our episode last week imagined what the world might look like if we had fixed social media and all the things that we could've done in order to make that possible. We'd really love to hear from you about these solutions and any other questions you're holding. So please, if you have more thoughts or questions, send us an email at undivided@humanetech.com.

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We really enjoyed hearing all of your questions for our annual Ask Us Anything episode. There was one question that kept coming up: what might a different world look like? The broken incentives behind social media, and now AI, have done so much damage to our society, but what is the alternative? How can we blaze a different path?

In this episode, Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin set out to answer those questions by imagining what a world with humane technology might look like—one where we recognized the harms of social media early and embarked on a whole of society effort to fix them.

This alternative history serves to show that there are narrow pathways to a better future, if we have the imagination and the courage to make them a reality.

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.

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Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke

The Anxious Generation by Jon Haidt

More information on Donella Meadows

Further reading on the Kids Online Safety Act

Further reading on the lawsuit filed by state AGs against Meta

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AI Is Moving Fast. We Need Laws that Will Too.

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