The Narrow Path: Sam Hammond on AI, Institutions, and the Fragile Future

The race to develop ever-more-powerful AI is creating an unstable dynamic. It could lead us toward either dystopian centralized control or uncontrollable chaos. But there's a third option: a narrow path where technological power is matched with responsibility at every step. Sam Hammond is the chief economist at the Foundation for American Innovation. He brings a different perspective to this challenge than we do at CHT. Though he approaches AI from an innovation-first standpoint, we share a common mission on the biggest challenge facing humanity: finding and navigating this narrow path. This episode dives deep into the challenges ahead: How will AI reshape our institutions? Is complete surveillance inevitable, or can we build guardrails around it? Can our 19th-century government structures adapt fast enough, or will they be replaced by a faster moving private sector? And perhaps most importantly: how do we solve the coordination problems that could determine whether we build AI as a tool to empower humanity or as a superintelligence that we can't control? We're in the final window of choice before AI becomes fully entangled with our economy and society. This conversation explores how we might still get this right. Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology . Follow us on X: @HumaneTech_ . You can find a full transcript, key takeaways, and much more on our Substack . RECOMMENDED MEDIA Tristan’s TED talk on the Narrow Path Sam’s 95 Theses on AI Sam’s proposal for a Manhattan Project for AI Safety Sam’s series on AI and Leviathan The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson Dario Amodei’s Machines of Loving Grace essay. Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World by Deirdre McCloskey The Paradox of Libertarianism by Tyler Cowen Dwarkesh Patel’s interview with Kevin Roberts at the FAI’s annual conference Further reading on surveillance with 6G RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES AGI Beyond the Buzz: What Is It, and Are We Ready? The Self-Preserving Machine: Why AI Learns to Deceive The Tech-God Complex: Why We Need to be Skeptics Decoding Our DNA: How AI Supercharges Medical Breakthroughs and Biological Threats with Kevin Esvelt CORRECTIONS Sam referenced a blog post titled “The Libertarian Paradox” by Tyler Cowen. The actual title is the “Paradox of Libertarianism.” Sam also referenced a blog post titled “The Collapse of Complex Societies” by Eli Dourado. The actual title is “A beginner’s guide to sociopolitical collapse.” Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.