New post

_posts/2024-07-16-Relentless technological progress.md

@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Sustained Economic Growth Comes From Relentless Technological Progress"
+date: 2024-07-16
+---
+
+Daniel Susskind writes in the FT urging the new UK government to [invest in science and technology](https://www.ft.com/content/f08e2a66-b2ee-4def-b6b2-315260905a89) and the people that drive their development in order to deliver the economic growth that Keir Starmer’s government promises. He writes the following of the mechanisms of growth:
+
+>[T]he little we do know suggests that it does not actually come from the world of tangible things, but rather from the world of intangible ideas.... Or, more simply, sustained economic growth comes from relentless technological progress.
+
+ Too often governments focus on the trappings of economic growth — tangible things like housing and roads — but fail to invest adequately in the furnace that drives it: the discovery and deployment of useful ideas.
+
+He rightly points out that leaders often have little control over the actual drivers of economic growth, certainly not within short terms that they occupy office. But if the furnace of economic productivity is fed, and the pipeline from that furnace to deployment of technologies is properly maintained, then tangibles like faster trains and better roads are the result. Productivity rises, as well as quality of life. Just not on the timescale of an election cycle.
+
+I partly quibble with Susskind’s characterization that there is no lever for economic growth. The levers are investment in basic research, careful nurturing of promising technologies, and efficient deployment of the most promising of those. The process is not simple, nor a fast-acting one. Technological progress compounds, but only so long as governments make regular investment and smart choices.
+
+I also want to nitpick the notion that new ideas will come less from humans and more from technology. On this Susskind writes:
+
+>The current century will be different. New ideas will come less frequently from us and more from the technologies around us. We can already catch a glimpse of what lies ahead: from large companies like Google DeepMind using AlphaFold to solve the protein-folding problem to each of us at our desks using generative AI — from GPT to Dall-E.
+
+Humans are still the agents of technologies like AlphaFold and generative AI. They choose the questions to ask and direct the process. Even if these products do begin formulating meaningful scientific questions on their own, humans will still choose which questions to pursue based on what they perceive as having the most value; the technologies are not autonomously identifying and solving problems. And when they start doing so, it will be for the benefit and with the consult of humans.