Erik Brynjolfsson: Economics of AI, Social Networks, and Technology | Lex Fridman Podcast #141

The following is a conversation with Erik Brynjolfsson. He's an economics professor at Stanford and the director of Stanford's Digital Economy Lab. Previously, he was a long, longtime professor at MIT, where he did groundbreaking work on the economics of information. He's the author of many books, including The Second Machine Age, and Machine Platform Crowd, co-authored with Andrew McAfee. Quick mention of each sponsor, followed by some thoughts related to the episode. Vincero Watches, the maker of classy, well-performing watches. Four Sigmatic, the maker of delicious mushroom coffee. ExpressVPN, the VPN I've used for many years to protect my privacy on the internet. And Cash App, the app I use to send money to friends. Please check out these sponsors in the description to get a discount and to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that the impact of artificial intelligence and automation on our economy and our world is something worth thinking deeply about. Like with many topics that are linked to predicting the future evolution of technology, it is often too easy to fall into one of two camps, the fearmongering camp or the technological utopianism camp. As always, the future will land us somewhere in between. I prefer to wear two hats in these discussions, and alternate between them often. The hat of a pragmatic engineer, and the hat of a futurist. This is probably a good time to, uh, mention Andrew Yang, the presidential candidate who has been one of the high profile thinkers on this topic, and I'm sure I will speak with him on this podcast eventually. A conversation with Andrew has been on the table many times. Our schedules just haven't aligned, especially because I have a strongly held-to preference for long form, two, three, four hours or more, and in person. I work hard to not compromise on this. Trust me, it's not easy. Even more so in the times of COVID, which requires getting tested non-stop, staying isolated, and doing a lot of costly and uncomfortable things that minimize risk for the guest. The reason I do this is because, to me, something is lost in remote conversation. That something, that magic, I think is worth the effort, even if it ultimately leads to a failed conversation. This is how I approach life: treasuring the possibility of a rare moment of magic. I'm willing to go to the ends of the world for just such a moment. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it with five stars on Apple Podcasts. Follow on Spotify, support on Patreon, connect with me on Twitter @lexfridman. And now, here's my conversation with Erik Brynjolfsson. You posted a quote on Twitter by Albert Bartlett saying that, "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." Why would you say the exponential growth is important to understand?

Yeah, that quote, I remember posting that. Uh, it's actually a reprise of something Andy McAfee and I said in The Second Machine Age. But I posted it in early March, when COVID was really just beginning to take off, and I was really scared. There were actually only a couple dozen cases, maybe less at that time, but they were doubling every, like, two or three days. And, you know, (laughs) I could see, "Oh my God, this is gonna be a catastrophe, and it's gonna happen soon." But nobody was taking it very seriously, or not a lot of people were taking it very seriously. In fact, I remember, uh, did my last, um, c- in-person conference that week. I was flying, uh, back from Las Vegas, and, uh, I was the only person on the plane wearing a mask.