Commonwealth Club Of California Podcast

In his final book, the late Henry Kissinger joined forces with two leading technologists to mount “a profound exploration” (says Walter Isaacson) of the epochal challenges and opportunities presented by the revolution in artificial intelligence—a breakthrough that they believe dramatically empowers people in all walks of life while also raising urgent questions about the future of humanity. Kissinger and his coauthors, technologists Craig Mundie and Eric Schmidt, argue that as AI absorbs data, gains agency, and intermediates between humans and reality, it will help us to address enormous crises, from climate change to geopolitical conflicts to income inequality. It might well solve some of the greatest mysteries of our universe and elevate the human spirit to unimaginable heights. But it will also pose challenges on a scale and of an intensity that we have never seen—usurping our power of independent judgment and action, testing our relationship with the divine, and perhaps even spurring a new phase in human