Larry Summers — AGI and the Next Industrial Revolution (#159)
Larry Summers is a former US Treasury Secretary (1999-2001), Chief Economist at the World Bank (1991-1993), and Director of the National Economic Council under President Obama (2009-2010). He also served as President of Harvard University (2001-2006).
Currently, he is the Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard University, and he sits on the board of directors at OpenAI, one of the fastest-growing companies in history.
JOSEPH WALKER: Today, it's my great honour to be speaking with Larry Summers. Larry is arguably the preeminent American economic policymaker of his generation. He was a Secretary of the Treasury, among many other roles, and he's currently on the board at OpenAI, among many other roles. Larry, welcome to the podcast.
If, as many serious people think, AI is likely to induce a step-function change in human economic growth, getting to chat with you in 2024 feels a little bit like an interviewer getting to speak with Adam Smith in the early decades of the Industrial Revolution—except I feel like I'm in a much more privileged position because I think you know a lot more about what's happening in San Francisco than Smith knew about what was going on in Manchester and Birmingham.
So, first question: you joined the board at OpenAI about a year ago, and that means if OpenAI succeeds in creating artificial general intelligence in the next few years, as it's attempting to do, you'll be one of nine people in the room who determines whether that has happened.
