August 2025
Intermediate
58m
English
video
Live with Tim O'Reilly: A Conversation with Princeton's Arvind Narayanan
by Tim O'Reilly, Arvind Narayanan
Closed Captioning available in German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Portugal, Brazil), Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional)
Overview
AI boosters would have you believe that AI is such an unprecedented leap forward that it will change everything almost immediately, that the singularity is upon us. Princeton professor and author Arvind Narayanan begs to differ.
Arvind and his coauthor Sayash Kapoor make the case in their recent paper “AI as Normal Technology” that like every other technology, however powerful, adoption will be slowed by factors extrinsic to the technology itself. Automobiles needed roads to be built, windshield wipers and headlights and better tires and auto liability insurance to be invented, vehicles and drivers to be licensed, and speed limits and road signs to be put into place. Likewise, AI requires a huge infrastructure buildout, the invention of new interfaces and applications, and much more. Already, AI inference is being rationed, with providers reducing quality or outright limiting access, and countless AI projects are stuck in the “pilot” phase rather than going to production.
We’ll hear from Arvind about “AI as Normal Technology,” then we’ll open up the floor for your questions and do our best to sort out hype from reality.
Recommended prep or follow-up:
- Read “AI as Normal Technology” (article from Columbia’s Knight First Amendment Institute)
- Read AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference (book)
- Read AI Snake Oil (Substack)
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