America250 – Part 3: The Future We're Building Now

**Peter Leyden** (0:00)
Honestly, these are the kind of things that are not crazy talk. This is like actually stuff that you can start thinking, God, we could maybe start doing this.

**Erica Mandy** (0:10)
Today is Friday, July 3rd. And instead of our regular news roundup today, we're continuing our America250 special series, looking at the past, present and future of America. As the country marks its 250th birthday this weekend. On Wednesday, we took you back to what life was like in 1776
Yesterday, we examined today's world and how history may remember us. Today, we're looking ahead to the next 25 years and beyond that's likely to be shaped in a lot of ways by new technologies. We already know artificial intelligence could change how we work, learn and create. But today's guest says that's just one of three major tipping points that could change civilization as we know it. Peter Leyden is a tech expert, futurist, and a former managing editor of Wired magazine. He spent decades following the front edge of technological change. And his upcoming book is called The Great Progression 2025 to 2050
Of course, no one can know exactly what the future holds. And there are a lot of different views out there about the promises and risks of fast moving technologies. But today, we're hearing this one futurist's case for why this could be a moment of extraordinary progress. Today, he explains what could change about work, health, the economy, democracy, and daily life. And why he thinks there's more reason for optimism than a lot of people realize.
Peter Leyden, thank you so much for joining us here on The News Worthy.

**Peter Leyden** (1:32)
It's great to be here with you on the 250th birthday.

**Erica Mandy** (1:35)
So everyone is talking about AI. A lot of us can feel that it's bringing on major change. But from your perspective, just how significant is this moment for what comes next?

**Peter Leyden** (1:46)
I think it's the biggest technological revolution we've ever seen. The arrival of intelligent machines is really a world-historic moment. It is a game-changer, it is a world-changer.
And I think it also coincides with a couple other technologies like clean energy technologies and bioengineering. That is really making this a unique moment in human history in which we're watching three really general purpose technologies hitting simultaneously.

**Erica Mandy** (2:12)
Yeah, you've called all three of those things, AI, clean energy, and bioengineering major tipping points. So first, what is a tipping point?

**Peter Leyden** (2:19)
Those of us in tech really understand that any successful new technology goes through essentially a technology adoption curve. There's always some early innovators, there's always early adopters who pick up on that. The tipping point is when they shift from that early phase that it could spin out or phase out to the actual one that is essentially just exponential growth that really goes global and ultimately changes the fundamentals of the economy, society, and ultimately the world. Now, that's what happened with personal computers, it happened with the Internet, it happened with electricity and these various other game changers. But that is absolutely happening with all three of these. AI is absolutely past the tipping point. There's no stopping. You're not going to put it in a box. The same thing with clean energy despite all the pushback from the Trump administration and everything else. When I say tip, it's going to get better and better and better, and it's going to get cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. What new technologies do is they take things that are scarce and expensive and they make them cheap and abundant. It happens all the time and one safe tip, there's no stop in it, and that's what's happening today.

**Erica Mandy** (3:20)
And you've given the example of something everybody knows about going from a clunky cell phone to the iPhone, which was the tipping point.

**Peter Leyden** (3:27)
The thing about tipping points which are really interesting is before the tip, they tip, everyone's like, it's not too good, it's clunky, it's not going to work, it's too expensive, I don't need it. And then after they tip, it's like, holy ****, this is the most amazing thing ever. And everybody needs it, but everyone wants it, but essentially that goes into this exponential growth. And by the way, the prices come down. Today's iPhone would have cost you in the late 90s, it was about $55 million, and that's now in the hands of everybody. So that's taking something super expensive and super scarce to something ubiquitous. And that's what's happening. And it's happening now with the AI, and it's going to happen with all kinds of stuff around this. Same thing is happening with clean energy, by the way. If you know, after 100 years of the internal combustion engine and gas and oil and coal, coal goes back 250 years, we're now with abundant clean energy. I mean, these solar panels are literally getting cheaper. They're cheaper than any other carbon energy source, and they're going to keep getting cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. And that's the same thing with electric cars. Electric cars are already about half as cheap as an internal combustion engine. It's going to get cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. And the electricity they run out is about half the price of gas. And that's where we are now. And we just have to face up to it. And that's part of what's happening is the next 25 years in America are going to be an unbelievably interesting time of transformation.