Into The Impossible: Daron Acemoglu on AI Hype, Jobs, and Liberal Democracy

About this episode

AI may be far less transformative than promised, and the real stakes are power, jobs, and who gets to decide. In this condensed 53-minute summary of the original episode, shortened to 8 minutes, Brian Keating interviews Nobel Prize-winning economist Daron Acemoglu about liberal democracy, science, social media, misinformation, AI regulation, and automation. Acemoglu argues that open societies are better for inquiry and innovation, but warns that algorithmic feeds, concentrated wealth, and AGI-style automation could worsen inequality and weaken institutions. He explains why consensus is not truth, why domain-specific AI tools like AlphaFold may align better than general models, and why…