Summers: Can't Leave AI Only to Developers

We had the retail sales numbers which came in lower than expected. Boy, the housing starts were really down substantially. Are we seeing a slowing economy? We may be and it's certainly not at the pace that it once was. I think it's a real question whether we're really seeing a profound slowing or month to month fluctuations. My guess is this is still in the world of month to month fluctuations with an underlying picture around continuing growth, but you can't be sure. And I'd certainly agree that the data has been more on the slow side for the last month or two then on the rapid side. So, so last week we spoke, we talked about the possible economic policies of a Donald Trump if you were returned to the White House, because he had floated the idea of maybe having tariffs replace some or all of income taxes. You were not very enthusiastic with that. Since then, he's responded to you very specifically on a podcast called All In where they asked him about, well, how he responded to your thoughts on tariffs. And he said he respected you. He he gave you nice plot. He said he respects you, your, you speak your mind is, I think what he said. But at the same time, he really likes tariffs, he said, because it shows the power of a country both economically and politically. What? What? What do you make of his endorsement of tariffs as a major tool of policy? I don't see the evidence for his belief. First of all, the tariffs he proposes are going to be levied against Canada. They're going to be levied against our traditional European allies. If they are a tool of power and intimidation, it seems to me they should be used much more selectively than he has proposed. Second, when you launch attacks, then others respond and the whole thing can spiral. The classic example of a major tariff policy in American history was Smoot Hawley and it contributed to making the Depression great. As I look around the world at countries who have seen tariffs as the center of their economic strategy to make a nationalist point vis a vis other countries, the examples look like places like like Argentina and a number of places in Latin America where it has not been so successful. So I'd like to see what the case is, but this is a case where it's about as universal among economists who studied these things that you shouldn't pursue systematic across the board tariffs for long periods of time. Let's talk about change because there's an awful lot of things that are changing around us right now. Whether it's climate that you've talked about a fair amount, geopolitics, the global economy, There are a lot of changes going at the same time. Are we going through a particularly tumultuous time of change right now? Do you think around us or has it always been thus? Here's the sense I have, David. I was fortunate enough to welcome baby granddaughter Frances Joanne into the world when my daughter had my first granddaughter about 10 days ago. So I've been thinking about her life and it made me think about my grandmother. My grandmother lived from 1900 to 1974. She saw indoor plumbing come. She saw electricity come. She saw first telephone, then radio, then TV. Movies come. She saw air conditioning. She saw antibiotics, which made childhood death a rarity. She saw the ability to no longer ride in horses, but instead to be able to fly across the country in five hours. My life almost now, as long as hers was yours. We've seen a lot of history. We've seen a lot of change. Yes, we've seen computers, we've seen the cell phone. We've seen, yes, the Bloomberg Terminal. We've seen more modern financial markets. But I think you'd have to agree that we've saw much, much less change. And my grandmother's generation did. I have a suspicion that my granddaughter is going to witness history like my grandmother did. And most importantly, I think we're going to see a step change with what happens in artificial intelligence. As I've said before, the wheel was awfully fundamental, but once you have the wheel, you don't automatically get more and better wheels. Same thing with electricity. But artificial intelligence has the capacity to make better artificial intelligence, and that puts in a kind of upward exponential ratchet that isn't a feature of any other technological change. So my daughter's going to witness seismic change and the granddaughter and granddaughter's going to witness seismic change and the issues going to be, can we manage it so we avoid the catastrophes that were also part of my grandmother's interval on this earth? Laurie, I just want to pick up on the artificial intelligence point because you brought artificial, generative artificial to us here at Wall Street Week, right about the time I think ChatGPT came out. Now since then, you've got on the board of open AI. So I want to ask what secret things in opening eye, but from what you understand now, but generative AI, has your view changed about how big it could be and also about what the possible dangers are because we know now more than we did then. Look, I, I think David, this can be transcendent in its importance for the reason that I, that I just described. It has this recursive aspect where it's able to improve itself and that differentiates it from other technologies. When we'll get where? Very hard to know how much will there be last mile problems that will stop some uses? That's another very important question where I don't think anybody can give a completely confident answer. God knows as companies, as a society, we we cannot leave war to generals and we cannot leave AI only to AI developers. That's why it's absolutely essential that public authorities take a strong role here to make sure this technology is used for good. But equally, any effort to stop this, or to just slow it down for the sake of slowing it down without also thinking about its positive development would be to cede the field to the irresponsible would be to cede the field to potential adversaries of the United States would be to cede the field to those whose vision of AI might be as a tool of totalitarianism rather than as a tool of human emancipation. That's why there's a phrase that I like the that open AI often uses responsible, iterative deployment. That is, you don't. You proceed in stages and you're very focused on doing it responsibly. Now, that's easier said than done and requires enormous thought, but I don't think we have any other viable alternative.