Articles
America And China: The Race On The AI Frontier
The US head start is measured in months. To pull ahead, Americans must settle their AI fears and energize their hopes.
November 12, 2026
The people building artificial intelligence worry there’s a real chance it could doom us all. Walter Isaacson, biographer extraordinaire, talks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about why the AI innovators keep building anyway, Drawing on a new podcast he's launched, The Builders, Isaacson explains why the AI innovators feel trapped in a race none of them can pause, why so many see humility and empathy as handicaps rather than virtues, and why he worries they’re pouring their talent into autonomous agents that leave humans out of the loop. Isaacson traces today’s AI debate back to the rival visions of Alan Turing and Ada Lovelace, reveals why Musk once told him his empathy was really vanity, and recalls Benjamin Franklin’s surprising lesson about faking humility. Plus: a Marie Curie story involving a secret affair and a second Nobel Prize.
Listen to the episode here.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Walter Isaacson is a professor of history at Tulane and an advisory partner at Perella Weinberg, a financial services firm based in New York City. He has been the CEO of the Aspen Institute, the CEO of CNN, and the editor of Time Magazine. Isaacson’s most recent biography, Elon Musk (2023), is an intimate chronicle based on spending two years by Musk’s side. He is also the author of The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race (2020), Leonardo da Vinci (2017), The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution (2014), Steve Jobs (2011), Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007), Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003), and Kissinger: A Biography (1992), and coauthor of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (1986).
RELATED SOURCES
- Walter Isaacson’s Website, Simon and Schuster
- Walter Isaacson on X
- The Builders Podcast with Walter Isaacson
- The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson
- Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
- Radioactive!: The Life of Marie Curie by Walter Isaacson
- “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” by A. M. Turing in Mind. 1950
- A Mind-Blowing Way of Looking at Math (with David Bessis)
- “The Candlemakers’ Petition” by Frederic Bastiat at The Foundation for Economic Education
- “The Story of Steve Jobs: An Inspiration or a Cautionary Tale?” by Ben Austen in Wired Magazine. July 2012
- The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. 1: The Path to Power by Robert Caro
- Dostoevsky: The Seeds of Revolt, 1821-1849 by Joseph Frank
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