Hubris, Humility, and the AI Revolution (with Walter Isaacson)

The people building artificial intelligence worry there’s a real chance it could doom us all. So why do they keep building anyway? Walter Isaacson, biographer extraordinaire, talks with EconTalk’s Russ Roberts about why the AI innovators feel trapped in a race none of them can pause. Drawing on The Builders, a new podcast he’s launched, Isaacson explains why so many of these innovators see humility and empathy as handicaps rather than virtues, and why he worries they’re pouring their talent into autonomous agents that leave humans out of the loop. Isaacson traces today’s AI debate back to the rival visions of Alan Turing and Ada Lovelace, reveals why Elon Musk once told him his empathy was really vanity, and recalls Benjamin Franklin’s surprising lesson about faking humility. Plus: a Marie Curie story involving a secret affair and a second Nobel Prize.