NEW PODCAST: Helen Thompson on Britain's Next Crisis
There is a growing sense that Britain's fiscal position is unsustainable. We’re spending more than we’re raising in tax, our debt is growing faster than the economy, and bond market scepticism about the government’s ability to fix any of this is driving up our interest payments.We may be heading for a crisis that will make Liz Truss’s mini-budget debacle look like a minor wobble. It would cause a lot of economic harm. It could also force us to rethink our priorities, as happened in the wake of the IMF bailout crisis in 1976. In order to think about what a crisis would look like and what its effects might be, I invited Helen Thompson on to the podcast.Helen is professor of political economy at Cambridge University. She is an expert on political and economic history, with a specialism in the geopolitics of energy production. Helen will be well known to many of you from her podcasting and journalism. In recent years she's become a widely influential thinker and writer beyond the academy, renowned for the depth and seriousness of her analysis. I can't think of a better person to ask about Britain's next crisis.This episode is a two-parter. In part one, which is free for all (Search ‘The Ruffian’ on all the usual podcast platforms), Helen talks about the forces pushing us towards crisis point, why she thinks the reckoning could come very soon, and why the current government's attempts to head it off are doomed to fail. We discuss whether and how a crisis might lead to a reset of our political priorities, with reference to past crises. In part two, which will be for paid subscribers only, we talk about what a crisis would mean for our Net Zero target. We also ask whether Nigel Farage's Reform has peaked too early. While it’s not very cheery, I found this a fascinating and eye-opening conversation. I hope you will too. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ian-leslie.com/subscribe
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New Podcast: Alison Gopnik On Whether the AIs Can Think For Themselves
Are our new AI overlords tools intelligent in the same way humans are? Is an AI agent truly, well agentic? Does it have a mind of its own, so to speak? Might it just decide to destroy us? Or is this completely the wrong way to think about it?In this episode I get into these questions with Professor Alison Gopnik, professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at UC Berkeley, where she's also a member of the AI Research Group.As many of you will know, Alison is a brilliant and profound thinker on cognition, innovation, and learning. She bridges the worlds of developmental psychology, philosophy, and technology. Her superb books on the science of childhood learning were a big influence on my own book about curiosity..I invited Alison on to discuss a recent paper she co-authored which argues that AI is not an ‘agent’ but a ‘cultural technology’ like the library or the printing press - just the latest in our long history of finding new ways to organise and transmit human information at scale. We discuss that and much else besides. This was so much fun to record. Alison gives us a scintillating and witty tour of her thinking about thinking; human and machine. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ian-leslie.com/subscribe
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NEW POD: Jasmine Sun On How AI Will Change Writing and Work
I recently talked to James Marriott about the future of writing and journalism in the age of AI. James was quite worried about how good the chatbots have got at writing and wondered if it spells doom for human writers, especially journalists. So I thought it would be good to follow up with a conversation with Jasmine Sun, a very talented young tech journalist and thinker from San Francisco. Jasmine writes for publications including the Wall Street Journal and the San Francisco Standard. She has a Substack - read her notes on AI and writing here - and is collaborating with the NYT’s chief tech columnist Kevin Roose on a book about the race to AGI.Jasmine worked in tech - for Substack, actually - before taking the leap into freelance journalism. It’s a slightly counter-intuitive career move and one I was keen to hear more about. Jasmine explains why she has faith in the future of journalism and human writing. We get into what LLMs can and can’t do; the human skills they can replicate, and those they can’t; why automation is often harder than people in tech think; whether there will be successful AI influencers; why people still seek a human connection; the importance of struggle in creativity. (At one point I mention Will Storr’s AI experiment - see here). As you can tell, while the conversation is centred on writing it’s about more than that.Jasmine was a brilliant guest, bubbling with insight and ideas, and great company. Since she was in London for a few days so we took the chance to record our chat in person. We used Westminster Podcast Studio, a small but perfectly formed studio in Kennington which I recommend. The audio pod is on all the usual platforms, and the video version is below. This is Part 1. In Part 2, for paid subscribers, we get into the nitty-gritty of how to get the most out of LLMs, Jasmine has some excellent tips on that. That’s coming soon.Enjoy! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ian-leslie.com/subscribe
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NEW POD: James Marriott on whether AI will make writers redundant
ChatGPT and Claude have got really quite good at writing. As they improve, will they make human writers, even highly skilled ones, as obsolete as typists? In the first part of this two-part episode, I discuss that question with returning guest James Marriott. James has been posting some of his experiments with ChatGPT his Substack and on Twitter - like this one:This stirred up quite a storm. It’s a topic that generates strong emotions - particularly among writers, as you might expect! It also opens up the question of what good writing is, and what kinds of writing we value most. We start with literature and move on to journalism and writing generally. I found our conversation fascinating and I hope you will too. If you’d like to watch us have it, here’s the video:In Part II, coming soon, for paid subscribers only, we’ll discuss the other side of this equation - reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ian-leslie.com/subscribe
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The Improving Mentality
In this episode of The Ruffian’s podcast we discuss what is possibly the single most important event in human history: the Industrial Revolution. If you look at all the economic data before (very roughly) 1780-1840, you see flat lines. Afterwards, everything starts going up, and continually. It's not just GDP - human welfare is transformed. Human became much more numerous and at the same time much richer, longer lived, and healthier.The Industrial Revolution wasn't just about coal and steel and factories. More fundamentally, it was the moment we learned how to continually get more value out of the same or fewer resources. The discovery of productivity growth transformed the human condition.But there are big unsolved questions about the origins of this transformation. Why did it happen at that time and not earlier? Even more puzzlingly, why did it happen first in Britain, and not, say, France, or the Netherlands, or China? Historians have debated these questions for decades. Some point to material factors like the price of labour and natural resources; others think that culture was more important. My guest leans toward the latter explanation, although as you’ll see, he has his own particular take on it.Anton Howes is an historian of innovation who is currently writing a book on the Industrial Revolution's origins based on his deep research into the leading inventors and entrepreneurs of the era. He has a popular Substack called The Age of Invention in which he shares some of the amazing stories he has uncovered. I’m delighted to have him on the show.This is part one of our conversation, in which we discuss Anton’s idea of “the improving mentality”, the mindset that he sees as underpinning the Industrial Revolution, and why it became widespread in Britain first of all. In part two, for paid subscribers only, we discuss why most of the action took place in the north of England rather than in London.Enjoy! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ian-leslie.com/subscribe
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