4. The Future of Prosperity

The Reith Lectures

BBC

Society & Culture, Science, Government, Technology

4.2 • 770 Ratings

🗓️ 20 December 2023

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This year's BBC Reith Lecturer is Ben Ansell, Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions at Nuffield College, Oxford University and author of “Why Politics Fails.” In four lectures called “Our Democratic Future,” he asks how we can build a politics that works for all of us with political systems which are robust to the challenges of the twenty first century, from climate change to artificial intelligence.

In this fourth and final lecture, recorded in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States, he interrogates a crucial question: can we continue to grow our economies without despoiling the earth? Focusing on the existential threats created by our own innovation - from climate change to out-of-control artificial intelligence – Ansell asks whether our politics is up to the task of supporting sustainable growth.

The Reith Lectures are chaired by Anita Anand and produced by Jim Frank. The Editors are China Collins and Clare Fordham, and the co-ordinator is Brenda Brown. The series is mixed by Rod Farquhar and Neil Churchill.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast, but this is about something else you might enjoy.
0:05.4	My name's Katie Lecky and I'm an assistant commissioner for on demand music on BBC Sounds.
0:10.8	The BBC has an incredible musical heritage and culture and as a music lover, I love being part of that.
0:17.5	With music on sounds, we offer collections and mixes for everything, from workouts to
0:22.4	helping you nod off, boogie in your kitchen, or even just a moment of calm. And they're all put
0:28.3	together by people who know their stuff. So if you want some expertly curated music in your life,
0:35.0	check out BBC Sounds.
0:41.2	BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.
0:47.3	Hi, I'm Ben Ansel, and thank you for listening to my BBC Radio 4th lectures on our democratic future. In this fourth and final lecture, I look at the future of prosperity
0:51.9	and how we can get and stay rich in a world of
0:55.7	increased climate change and risks from artificial intelligence.
1:00.0	Welcome to Georgia in the southern United States for this, the final Reith lecture of the series.
1:06.9	A centre for the civil rights struggle, Georgia was more recently pivotal in helping to determine the outcome of the last presidential election.
1:15.4	This year, it's often been in the headlines after charges of election fraud were brought against Donald Trump.
1:21.6	And now we're less than a year away from what looks like another highly contentious contest.
1:30.8	We're in Atlanta at the Georgia Institute of Technology,
1:36.1	known here as Georgia Tech, one of America's top public research universities.
1:41.4	It has more than 47,000 students specializing in computing and engineering.
1:47.1	And as such, this place is symbolic of the increasing, how should I put it,
1:53.4	economic muscle flexing of the South. And we're here with Oxford University's Professor Ben Ansel,
1:59.5	having gained a master's from Berkeley, he did his PhD at Harvard, and then he taught in Minnesota.
2:02.5	So in a way, he sort of covers the west, east,
	...

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