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Special Financing for a limited time. What

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is the best way to

0:33

get home? Hello everyone and

0:35

welcome to Amanpour. Here's what's coming up.

0:38

The day America goes dark as

0:41

a total eclipse travels across the

0:43

United States. What makes this one

0:45

different with physicist Brian Greene? Then

0:48

I'm here because these hostages must

0:51

come home now. Six months since

0:53

Hamas attacked Israel, six months of

0:55

agony for hostages and their families.

0:58

I'm joined by Sharon Lifshitz, whose

1:00

father is still being held captive.

1:03

And six months of killing, starvation

1:05

and destruction as Israel goes after

1:08

Hamas in Gaza. We

1:10

have a special report. Also ahead.

1:12

This is a case where the

1:14

technology may compete a little more

1:17

with the elite and enable more

1:19

people to do valuable work. Could

1:21

artificial intelligence help rebuild America's middle

1:23

class? MIT economics professor

1:26

David Orter tells Walter Isaacson

1:28

how AI could create opportunities

1:31

for workers. Welcome

1:49

to the program everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour

1:51

in New York and across the Americas

1:53

people are looking up as a total

1:55

solar eclipse journeys through Mexico towards the

1:58

United States and on the ground. on

2:00

to Canada, a celestial event where

2:02

the moon passes between the earth

2:04

and the sun, covering it, darkening

2:06

the sky and chilling the air. Here's

2:09

the path of the eclipse and

2:11

weather permitting, it should be visible to 32

2:14

million people in the

2:16

so-called Path of Totality, across more than

2:18

10 US states. The next

2:20

one is due in 2044, two decades from

2:22

now. Today's

2:25

is set to become a huge communal

2:27

event across what can only be described

2:30

as a bitterly divided country. And

2:32

joining me now to talk about

2:34

what makes this eclipse so special

2:37

is physicist, mathematician and author, Brian

2:39

Greene. Welcome to the program,

2:41

Brian Greene. I mean, for somebody

2:43

like you, this must be just

2:45

the most amazing gift, the most

2:48

amazing drama. Yeah, it's

2:50

absolutely wonderful, the excitement of

2:52

people looking up, right?

2:54

We often get so engulfed by the things that

2:56

happen here down on the surface of planet

2:58

earth that we take the universe

3:00

for granted. How wonderful is

3:02

it to have a celestial event, a

3:04

cosmic event that focuses our attention away

3:06

from everything here and on the

3:09

bigger things that happen out there in the cosmos? Indeed,

3:11

indeed. Now tell us though,

3:14

some people, scientists maybe, or

3:16

you know, social commentators call

3:18

this I believe a beautiful

3:20

coincidence, the idea of what

3:22

we're about and what we're witnessing today.

3:25

Yeah, it's a huge cosmic

3:27

coincidence. It just so

3:29

happens that the sun is about

3:31

400 times larger than

3:33

the moon, but it's

3:35

also 400 times further away

3:37

than the moon. And those two effects cancel

3:40

each other out, making the sun and the

3:42

moon appear to roughly be

3:44

the same size in the sky, which

3:47

means on occasion when the

3:49

orientation of everything is correct,

3:51

the moon can completely block

3:53

out the sun. And

3:55

when it does, we have this

3:57

incredible phenomenon, this total

4:00

solar eclipse, which those

4:02

have experienced it, say, today or in

4:05

the past or maybe in the future,

4:07

it's an emotional experience to

4:09

feel the universe undergoing

4:11

this momentary change that

4:14

we rarely ever experience.

4:16

And to me, the first one I saw was

4:18

in 2017, and it had this

4:21

real profound impact on me and everybody who

4:23

was around me. It was really wonderful. What

4:26

was the impact? I mean, I've heard

4:28

it written that this is an event

4:30

so far outside the realm

4:32

of normal human experience that

4:34

you're not prepared for it.

4:37

What was the emotion? What was

4:39

the impact on you as a scientist? It's

4:42

a feeling of awe and wonder.

4:44

I mean, look, I spend my

4:46

working days calculating things about the

4:49

universe on the small scales, the

4:51

big scales, trying to understand how

4:53

things work. But that

4:55

is largely cognitive, right? It's

4:58

something that happens up in

5:00

our cerebral cortex. But when

5:02

you experience this phenomenon

5:04

where the sky goes

5:07

dark and you can see

5:09

the planets during the day and some

5:11

stars come out, it's emotional.

5:14

And that emotional connection to the

5:17

cosmos is something that many of

5:19

us don't get to experience that

5:21

frequently. I feel

5:24

that if we all could have that

5:26

emotional connection to this wider reality more

5:28

frequently, the world would

5:30

simply be a better place. Yeah,

5:33

I want to repeat what you said. You

5:35

said this, but it's worth reading it out

5:37

again. It may sound naive, but

5:40

it feels to me that if more people nightly

5:43

experienced a brilliant sky full of stars

5:45

in some small way, it would make

5:47

the world a better place. It would

5:49

make the world a place where we'd

5:51

recognize that we're part of a much

5:54

grander whole. And we sort of

5:56

started the introduction to you saying

5:58

that in this bitterly... divided country

6:00

and world of ours, this is

6:03

an experience that is causing, I mean,

6:05

millions, tens of millions of people

6:07

certainly in the Americas to unite.

6:10

Yeah. A communal happening,

6:13

right? I mean, it's like the

6:15

Woodstock of the cosmos or something,

6:17

right? We're all coming together to

6:19

witness something. And look, it would

6:21

be naive to imagine

6:23

that what happened in 535 B.C.

6:25

during that solar eclipse.

6:29

You had these two warring factions in today's

6:31

Turkey, the Lydians and the Medes, I believe

6:33

they were called. They're in battle.

6:36

And the solar eclipse unexpectedly happens. And what

6:38

do they do? They say, we probably shouldn't

6:41

be fighting. That's why the sky is going

6:43

dark. They put down their weapons and they

6:45

came to a truce. Now, how wonderful would

6:47

it be if that were to happen here

6:49

on planet Earth? But I'm not so naive

6:51

to imagine that. But if

6:54

we can feel together

6:56

part of something larger than

6:58

the issues that divide us here on the

7:00

planet, how wonderful would

7:03

that be? I mean, that's really what

7:05

these kinds of cosmic phenomenon are all

7:07

about, at least in my mind. Yes.

7:10

And as you're speaking, we have some pictures of people

7:12

preparing for this. And it's

7:15

a lot over New York. There's some

7:17

Niagara Falls pictures. It hasn't,

7:19

you know, they haven't seen it yet. Now,

7:22

the statistics apparently are that across

7:24

10 US states, there

7:27

is a path of totality

7:29

in which 32 million people

7:32

live. And we'll look

7:34

up and we'll explain to us what

7:36

those in the path will see, those

7:38

32 million first beyond

7:41

the bigger clouds. Yeah. Well,

7:43

totality for an eclipse

7:46

is radically different from

7:48

a partial eclipse. I hate

7:50

to say it because many people only

7:52

experience the partial version. But when you're

7:55

in the path of totality to

7:57

see the sun completely disappear.

8:00

and then to just catch the

8:02

the glimmering edge of the Sun

8:05

behind the moon and for the

8:08

temperature to drop and

8:11

for you to start to hear

8:13

some of the nocturnal animals come

8:15

alive to be able to see

8:17

planets out there during the day

8:20

it's just a very

8:22

different kind of experience than blotting out you

8:24

know ninety percent or even ninety five percent

8:26

of the thumb which still leaves this guy

8:29

very very bright that's how bright

8:31

the Sun is though those who

8:33

experience totality are really getting the

8:35

full experience of what this is

8:37

all about and of

8:39

course everybody is being advised to be

8:41

very careful about protecting

8:43

their eyes wearing the correct

8:46

I wear idea and and

8:48

to be very clear of what they're buying

8:50

and not just some little piece of you

8:52

know of dark and paper they

8:54

have to be super careful what happens if

8:57

you look at it without the correct

8:59

protection not good it

9:01

is the Sun is incredibly bright

9:03

and you can get captivated by

9:05

what's happening up there and you can

9:08

damage your eyes and you're absolutely

9:10

right there are these fly-by-night companies that

9:12

care more about their profit margin than

9:14

they do about your retina or

9:17

your eyes more generally and so you have

9:19

to be careful to make sure that is

9:21

a certified eclipse glasses in

9:24

order to protect yourself and definitely

9:26

don't do what the former

9:28

president didn't twenty seventeen look at

9:30

it directly that's just crazy and

9:33

apparently if it does really strike you in

9:35

the in the retina it's incurable I mean

9:38

it's a situation that yes can be so

9:41

let's talk about the okay so

9:43

thirty two million people are

9:45

established residents in the path of

9:47

totality but it's estimated that half

9:49

the United States population some one hundred

9:51

and seventy five million may be

9:53

able to see something and that

9:56

far exceeds the number well exceeds the number

9:58

of people who watch the Super Bowl So

10:00

again, this communal, wondrous event,

10:02

what will they see, people who

10:04

are not in, what have

10:07

they seen outside the path

10:09

of totality? So a

10:11

partial eclipse is still a

10:13

dramatic happening. I mean, our

10:15

forebears used to interpret

10:18

it in the early days as

10:20

perhaps some dragon coming along and

10:22

starting to eat part of the

10:24

sun. You see this black disc,

10:26

which is the moon, partially cover

10:28

the sun and it thereby cuts out

10:31

a little piece of the sun leaving

10:33

a crescent sun. We don't ever see

10:35

a crescent sun. We're familiar with crescent

10:37

moons, but to see a crescent sun

10:39

is still a deeply

10:41

unusual phenomenon and one that's

10:43

awe-inspiring. So

10:46

yes, even if the partial eclipse is

10:48

all that you have access to, that

10:50

is still a wondrous experience. And

10:53

Brian Greene, what science can

10:55

be achieved? Is there anything further

10:57

from this particular event, because there

11:00

have been total eclipses, that

11:03

NASA or people like yourself are looking

11:05

at to learn something and

11:07

how does that compare with the previous ones?

11:09

You know, not from the point of view

11:12

of fundamental science. We understand the orbital mechanics

11:14

pretty well. Perhaps we can

11:16

glean something about the details of the

11:18

chromosphere or the corona in this sort

11:21

of circumstance, but there are studies and

11:23

in fact there are citizen science studies

11:25

where I believe that NASA and others

11:27

have asked people to observe

11:30

the life around them

11:32

to the insects or the birds or

11:34

the other animals to see how

11:37

they respond to, say, being

11:39

within the path of totality.

11:41

The path of totality you only experience for

11:43

a couple of minutes, so it's not as

11:45

though you can, as a scientist, go out

11:47

and measure this repeatedly whenever you want. So

11:50

if you can have people around the

11:52

country along that path of totality report

11:54

on what's going on, yes, there can

11:56

be some great insights that would emerge.

11:59

That's great. of citizen scientists because

12:01

we live in an era where

12:03

in some quarters science is debunked,

12:06

it's subject to conspiracy theories, fake

12:08

news and all the rest of

12:10

it. At the same time, NASA

12:12

wants to repopulate or at

12:15

least revisit the moon, talking about

12:17

eventually parts of Mars, etc. How

12:20

does this play into, I

12:22

guess, citizens' imaginations,

12:24

the sort of public

12:27

opinion towards doing those kinds

12:29

of, that kind of space travel? Well,

12:31

I think it's absolutely vital for

12:33

many people. Science is this distinct

12:36

separate thing that maybe they studied in

12:38

school but then they left it behind

12:40

when they no longer had to take

12:42

the next exam or take the next

12:44

class. But that's not what science

12:46

is about. Science is about

12:49

understanding our place in some larger cosmic

12:51

order. And yes, going to the moon

12:53

and going to Mars and beyond, vital

12:56

to that mission. And

12:58

if people feel connected to what's happening out

13:01

there and that's what this solar eclipse can

13:03

do, then they're going to be

13:05

more interested. They're going to follow it. They're going

13:07

to support it. They're not going to somehow say,

13:09

we don't want to waste money on going to

13:12

the moon and going to Mars. They're going to

13:14

feel part of that drama. And that's

13:16

the main point. Science is

13:19

a human drama of discovery. It's

13:21

for all of us. And this event

13:23

is for all of us and allows that

13:25

focus on science to really shine through. Indeed.

13:28

And I think one of the previous

13:30

ones refined or completed the proof of

13:32

Einstein's theory of relativity. And

13:35

I want to ask you about timings because you saw the

13:37

last one in 2017. That's approximately

13:40

seven years ago, right? The next one

13:42

is in two decades. There seems to

13:44

be no rhyme, no reason to this

13:47

beautiful coincidence. Well, there is

13:49

rhyme or reason. It's just subtle. It's in

13:51

the mathematics. So it's hard to have an

13:53

intuition about it. But you're right.

13:55

Over the continental United States, you're going to

13:57

have to wait until the 24. I

14:00

think 2044 to see it in Alaska a little

14:02

earlier, I think, in the 2030s. And

14:05

you're absolutely right. Back in 1919, there

14:07

was a solar eclipse that

14:09

two teens of astronomers used

14:12

to confirm a prediction of

14:14

Albert Einstein from his new

14:16

general theory of relativity. So

14:18

yes, there has been deep

14:20

scientific insight coming from these

14:22

eclipses. And who knows going forward

14:24

what we may be able to glean. Ryan,

14:28

if there was one thing that you

14:30

take away from this day and

14:33

this incredible event, what

14:35

would it be? What is it? That

14:37

we can still generate a communal

14:39

excitement about something that's not

14:41

democratic, it's not Republican, it's not left,

14:44

it's not right, it's cosmic, it's real,

14:46

it's part of the reality that we

14:48

are all part of. And that's

14:50

really, to me, what this event is about. Thank

14:53

you so much. And you'll be watching it, right, with

14:56

your eyes and you have... Got

14:59

my glasses right here ready. Okay,

15:01

good, good, good, good. Brian Greene, thank

15:03

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15:39

I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta. This

15:42

week on Chasing Life, Christopher Gardner

15:44

is a Stanford University professor. His

15:46

research shows that two people, following

15:49

the same exact quote-unquote healthy diet,

15:51

can have wildly different results. Somebody

15:54

gained 15 pounds and somebody lost

15:56

50 pounds and everything in

15:58

between. Wow. quote-unquote

16:00

healthy diet isn't enough for everyone,

16:03

where does that leave us? Listen

16:05

to Chasing Life, wherever you get your

16:07

podcasts. Now

16:11

as we said of course much of

16:13

the world remains deeply and bitterly

16:15

divided, locked in combat, cycles

16:17

of killing and revenge, terrifying

16:19

destruction. Israelis

16:21

passed the six month mark since

16:23

the October 7th attack by Hamas,

16:25

a terrorist rampage that killed 1,200

16:29

Israelis and saw hundreds more kidnapped.

16:31

In a painful development over the weekend,

16:34

the IDF recovered the body of one

16:36

hostage who was killed in captivity. Now

16:39

133 people are still being

16:41

held hostage amid mounting anger and

16:43

demonstrations by their families against

16:46

their own government's failure to bring the

16:48

rest of their people home. Negotiations

16:51

continue and Egyptian state media

16:53

is reporting there has been quote significant

16:56

progress, we have heard this before though,

16:58

towards a ceasefire and hostage release. Now

17:01

ahead of this gruesome six month

17:03

date, I spoke again with Sharon

17:05

Lipschitz who joined me on set in

17:07

London where she lives. Her mother,

17:09

Yoheved, was one of the first hostages

17:12

freed back in October, but her 83

17:15

year old father Oded remains

17:17

captive in Gaza. Sharon

17:20

Lipschitz welcome back to the program. It

17:24

is actually extraordinary that we're sitting here

17:26

talking again and it's six months. Yes,

17:29

it's unbelievable. It's

17:32

a failure. What

17:34

do you mean? I, even

17:37

if I don't need to say

17:39

who has caused this failure, but if

17:41

a 134 people are still held

17:45

hostage after six months of

17:48

war, we as

17:50

the hostage family have not managed to

17:53

press upon whoever it is to

17:55

bring them back home and how

17:57

important it is. Do

18:00

you think that attempt, that

18:02

movement by the hostage families, is

18:04

gaining momentum now? Do you think, you

18:07

know, we see, for instance,

18:09

families storming the part of the Knesset,

18:11

we see these protests that have risen

18:13

much, much more in recent weeks as

18:16

the ceasefire and hostage release negotiations seem

18:18

to be stalled? The

18:21

hostage families come from all

18:23

walks of life in Israel.

18:25

There's so many of them

18:27

and they have different opinions

18:29

and they're exercising their democratic

18:31

rights within Israel. Many

18:34

do not feel that enough is being

18:37

done. We are desperate. We

18:39

have fought so hard for six months.

18:42

We never imagined that our loved

18:44

one will still be there. And

18:47

for us, every day, every

18:49

moment, we are with them

18:51

there. We are underground. We are in

18:53

the hospital where they're lying. We

18:56

are cold with them. We are desperate

18:59

with them. You

19:01

know, we know, and I said your

19:03

mother fortunately was one of the first

19:05

to be released. And that was in

19:08

October, shortly after she was taken captive.

19:10

But your 83-year-old father, Oded, remains hostage.

19:13

Have you, in these six months,

19:15

heard anything about him? My

19:18

mom came back and told us, and

19:20

we must remember she came back without

19:22

a deal. She told us that our

19:25

dad was dead. The hostages

19:27

that came back later

19:30

told us that he was seen in

19:32

Gaza. He was seen in El Nazar

19:34

Hospital on the first day. And

19:36

one of the hostages was with

19:38

him in the same room for a period.

19:41

After that, we have no knowledge

19:43

of him. So we assume

19:46

he's still out there. We

19:48

assume he's suffering tremendously because he's

19:50

very, very frail. He's 83. He's

19:54

got medical conditions.

19:57

And was he injured

19:59

when he was killed? He was injured, a

20:02

bullet that came through the door, injured

20:04

him. He was beaten. He

20:06

was lying. Beaten. Yes.

20:09

And he was lying unconscious outside the house. That's

20:11

the last my mom saw of him after 63

20:13

years of marriage. And

20:16

she said, because I heard a recent interview,

20:18

that she couldn't even, you know, she was

20:20

grabbed in her night clothes, put onto a

20:22

motorcycle. She couldn't even tend to her husband

20:24

of 63 years. You've

20:28

been back, obviously, since she's released, and you've been

20:30

spending time with her and your family. How is

20:32

she doing? How is your Heved doing? My

20:36

mom is a strong woman.

20:38

I don't feel that she's

20:40

broken as a person. Her

20:43

beliefs remain as they were. She

20:46

has seen a lot of the world, and

20:49

she has been through the most enormous ordeal.

20:52

She is also part of

20:55

a community that is really broken.

20:57

We have lost, we

20:59

are a community of 400. 40

21:02

are dead and buried. Ten

21:04

of them are still held hostage that are dead.

21:07

27 live hostages are still being held by a

21:09

kamal. We

21:12

are devastated. We

21:14

are broken. And as a small

21:16

community, we do a

21:18

lot to try and support each other

21:20

through it. The community

21:23

you're talking about is near us, yes?

21:25

The kibbutz that they founded along

21:27

with their friends. Is there anything remaining

21:29

of that? Will that ever be home

21:32

to anybody again? I

21:34

believe it would be. I

21:37

believe that we will come back.

21:39

We are working on it. Some people are

21:42

working on it. Some

21:45

people will not come back, but maybe

21:47

others would. I feel

21:49

that the ideas that this community

21:51

stood for, these ideas deserve

21:54

to continue. One of the

21:56

ideas that this community stood for was actually

21:58

being part of the peace. camp, the

22:00

Israeli peace camp, and actually trying

22:02

to help Palestinians who needed it

22:04

inside Gaza and maybe even

22:06

on the occupied territories, I don't know. But

22:10

your mother has also said that

22:12

it's not bombs and

22:15

aircraft and tanks that are going

22:17

to bring back Oded, your dad, and

22:19

the others. It is a diplomatic solution.

22:22

Do you have any hope, A,

22:24

that your government will create some kind

22:27

of a solution, and B, are you

22:29

scared that this horrendous, consistent

22:31

bombing, and we've seen how

22:33

many, you know, how many

22:35

Palestinian civilians are being killed, puts your

22:37

family and others in danger? I

22:40

think they're in danger every day. Obviously,

22:43

they're in danger from the bombing, but we

22:45

know, and we have seen

22:47

last week the reports about women being

22:50

raped there, we know that

22:52

they're treated in a really horrible

22:54

way, many of them. And

22:56

so we are petrified for them every

22:59

day. In every way? In every way.

23:02

Your mother, what does she tell you

23:05

about how she was treated? Everybody saw

23:07

her release and her saying, Shalom, to

23:09

one of the captors. It

23:11

was a human moment. What

23:13

does she say about how she was treated violently,

23:16

badly? My mom was taken

23:18

on a motorbike. She's 85-year-old, and she

23:20

was put like a carpet on a

23:22

motorbike. She was taken through

23:24

the field after she just saw my

23:26

father lying and thought he's dead. She

23:29

could see the place on fire, and

23:32

hundreds of civilians were

23:34

running towards her with sticks

23:36

and with knives, and they

23:38

were shouting, Et bakali yawud,

23:40

and alla'ul akbar. Kill

23:44

the Jews, and God is great. After

23:47

that, she met people, and

23:50

my mom believed in shared humanity.

23:52

She is a person who truly

23:54

believed in people, and she herself

23:57

was able to distinguish between people.

24:00

That person she talked to, who was

24:02

a paramedic, spoke to her

24:04

kindly and she responds in

24:06

kindness. She has

24:08

always seen horrendous, horrendous things.

24:12

I was struck by the fact that she says she

24:14

thinks she saw in a tunnel or in

24:17

one of the rooms in which she was

24:19

captured Yahya Sinwar, the

24:21

mastermind of all of this, and that

24:23

she confronted this person who she thought

24:25

was Sinwar. I mean it's

24:27

remarkable to hear her tell it. I think

24:30

she speaks to truth, to power

24:32

wherever it is. She

24:35

was unafraid, she felt that the worst

24:37

has happened, and

24:40

she didn't know what the future

24:42

holds, but she held on

24:45

to her truth and that's something we all

24:47

have to learn from. And she said? And

24:49

she said, yeah, well she

24:51

told him why us, you know.

24:54

I don't believe anybody

24:56

deserves what happened to us. So

24:59

while she said it, because

25:02

she was a peace activist,

25:04

I don't feel any civilians

25:06

deserve the atrocities of the 7th

25:08

of October. And did he respond?

25:11

No, I

25:13

don't think he's the kind of person that responds.

25:16

I want to ask you about your father, because

25:19

you know, even before he

25:21

had written, you know, many

25:23

times about Israel, about the

25:25

situation, and he

25:27

had written also about

25:30

the state of security or

25:32

non-security. In an op-ed in

25:34

Haratz in 2019, he said

25:37

about Netanyahu, he is not

25:39

Israel's defender, saying that his

25:41

image as, you know, protector,

25:43

the ultimate security man, was

25:45

misguided and that Bibi

25:47

had already failed in his promise for

25:49

security over the Iran nuclear program and

25:51

the northern border and other such thing.

25:54

And he said, and this is a quote, when

25:56

Gazans have nothing to lose, we

25:58

lose, big time. Can

26:01

you reflect on what he said in

26:03

2019 and whether it's still relevant today? I

26:06

think it's absolutely relevant today, Kristin.

26:09

I think that the whole point

26:11

of even if you believe in

26:13

military activity is to reach long-term

26:16

agreements. And this is

26:19

why I'm here as well. I'm here

26:21

because these hostages must come home now.

26:24

That's the best way of reaching a

26:26

ceasefire. And it's the best way of

26:28

then building towards the work that my

26:31

parents have spent their life doing, which

26:33

is reaching long-term agreements with

26:36

our neighbors. It's

26:38

not easy. Work of peace is not

26:40

an easy work. It's dirty and

26:42

it's gray and it's imperfect.

26:45

And you have to give up on a lot. And

26:48

I think that we forget it. We feel

26:50

that it's a white dove and I feel

26:52

that it's a dirty, dirty dove. But

26:55

it gives us the hope that our

26:57

children and grandchildren might have a place

27:00

that my parents will recognize.

27:04

And I think that my father, I

27:06

can't speak for what he thinks now. I

27:08

don't want to. But everything

27:11

he ever taught us was that

27:13

if you don't make

27:15

peace, which is the hard work, you

27:18

get war, which is the failure of it.

27:21

My father believed in peace. He

27:23

believed that we have partners to

27:25

do peace with. He hated Hamas.

27:28

He would be horrified at how often

27:30

Hamas is missing from the equation of

27:33

what is happening in Gaza. For

27:35

him, an organization just placed itself

27:38

in hospitals and schools and mosque

27:40

would be, will

27:42

be the worst. He knew who Hamas

27:44

was. He had friends in Gaza that

27:47

had to escape because Hamas took over.

27:50

And we have to make peace with

27:52

these people, with the people that came

27:54

to our community and murdered. And

27:56

the whole world is looking at us and saying, why

27:58

are you doing this? And

28:01

I don't want to answer that.

28:03

I'm not a military person, I'm

28:06

not a political strategist. But

28:08

I do believe in humanity, and

28:10

I believe that we will have to reach

28:12

deal with these people in spite of all

28:14

of that, and that both

28:16

sides will have to take a long

28:18

hard look in the mirror. When

28:21

people in Gaza talk about us as

28:24

if we all the same, we're not

28:26

all the same, there's

28:28

many people in Israel fighting

28:30

now for this long term

28:33

solutions. Israel

28:35

is not all the same, and

28:37

we are not able to say

28:39

about Hamas, all of Gaza is

28:41

Hamas. We are asked to make

28:44

a distinction between civilian and non-civilian,

28:47

even after those hundreds of civilians

28:49

entered our keyboards and did what

28:51

they did. Do you think

28:53

then that, given what you say,

28:57

do you think that Israel and Israelis

29:00

are still so

29:02

traumatized that they're not actually seeing

29:04

the fact that Palestinians are not

29:06

being distinguished in Gaza, that they

29:09

are being bombed and they are being starved

29:11

and they are being killed and they're mounting up, you

29:15

know, it's like 33,000 dead, including

29:17

thousands and thousands of children.

29:20

You're wearing your, you know, your hostage, I

29:22

can just see you're wearing your ribbons and

29:24

things, are

29:27

you expected and can you and can the others feel

29:29

their pain as well? And

29:32

I wonder what you think that

29:34

will leave as a backlash. I

29:38

think that on the 7th of

29:40

October, the pendulum has swung harder

29:43

than I ever imagined possible. We,

29:47

in Israel, we are very traumatized,

29:49

we are deeply traumatized, and

29:51

I think some people do not see the pain of the other, I

29:56

can speak for myself that I demand

29:58

of myself to see. the

30:00

pain of the other side and

30:03

I want to believe in

30:05

our shared humanity. It

30:07

is very hard to see

30:09

the pain that others in

30:11

Gaza are suffering and

30:14

I hope very much that

30:16

we both end up with

30:18

leaders that tell us the

30:20

truth that

30:23

lead us to a sensible

30:25

existence on both sides. This

30:28

truth is badly missing.

30:31

It's missing from Gaza

30:33

and it's missing from Israel. And

30:37

it seems to be reaching a pinnacle

30:39

again of just violence with

30:41

no view into a more

30:43

peaceful future. So I wanted to end because

30:46

we have some beautiful imagery of your

30:48

father playing the piano and he was

30:51

a musician and is a

30:53

musician and I just wanted to play it and

30:55

just have you reflect on some of the joy

30:57

that you experienced as a family. We're going to

30:59

listen to a little bit. So

31:22

dad he's somewhere in captivity right

31:24

now. Yeah I hope they

31:27

treat him nice and I

31:29

hope he will come back to us. He

31:31

is a remarkable person.

31:35

He really believed that we

31:37

should both write

31:39

letters to the leaders of the world to

31:41

tell them how to solve the problem of

31:43

the world. He wrote to

31:45

Obama several times and he

31:47

believed that we should help our neighbor and

31:50

he spent his retirement driving Palestinians

31:52

from the border to hospitals when

31:55

they were ill. And

31:57

I would ask him what did they say and

32:00

And he will talk to them, he spoke of the

32:02

Arabic. And I

32:04

hope that he knows we love him.

32:07

I'm sure he does. Sharone

32:09

Lipschitz, thank you. You're welcome.

32:13

So that was in London just before

32:15

this grim anniversary. And to

32:17

hear the victim, the family of somebody

32:19

who's still hostage, insist that everybody's humanity

32:22

is taken into account and insist that

32:24

you don't make friends or you don't

32:26

make peace with your friends, but you

32:28

have to make peace with your enemies

32:31

is a really important message right now. Because

32:34

Israel's vow to destroy Hamas has

32:36

taken a catastrophic toll on the

32:38

people of Gaza. More

32:40

than 33,000 Palestinians have been

32:42

killed in the six months since

32:45

October 7th, most of them women

32:47

and children, according to health authorities

32:49

there. In a new

32:51

development, some are slowly returning to

32:53

Khan Yunus in southern Gaza after

32:55

the Israeli military withdrew its forces.

32:58

But an IDF official says troops

33:00

are, quote, far from stopping operations

33:03

in Gaza. Amid all

33:05

of this starvation, the real threat

33:07

of famine stalks the blockaded enclave.

33:09

Correspondent Nada Bashir reports, and of course,

33:12

this too is so difficult to hear

33:14

and to watch. Taking

33:22

a graduation full of hope for the

33:24

future. This

33:27

was life in Gaza for Om Ihab's

33:29

family before the war. Now

33:33

Om Ihab is one of almost

33:35

two million Palestinians that have been

33:37

displaced. We

33:39

never needed anything from anyone before the

33:41

war, Om Ihab says. But

33:43

now we are in a situation where I'm forced to

33:45

beg for a loaf of bread just to feed

33:48

the children. In

33:50

this makeshift shelter, without access to

33:52

adequate food supplies or medical

33:54

care, Om Ihab's husband became

33:56

severely malnourished and later died.

34:01

The hardest thing was losing my husband, the

34:03

way in which he died, she says. We're

34:05

all going to die one day, but every death

34:07

has a reason. He died from

34:10

hunger, from oppression. He had no

34:12

food and no water for 55 days. It's

34:15

very difficult for me to accept this. Satellite

34:20

images show the scale of the destruction in

34:22

central Gaza. Buildings, roads,

34:24

completely destroyed by Israel's relentless

34:27

bombing campaign. Israel

34:30

says it is targeting Hamas, but six

34:32

months on and the death toll has

34:34

now surpassed 33,000, the vast

34:38

majority civilian. Each

34:41

week has brought with it yet more horror, more

34:44

bodies pulled from beneath the rubble of destroyed

34:46

homes, more funerals. Survivors

34:51

forced to flee from one battleground to another.

34:54

And now more children left emaciated

34:56

by a hunger crisis which is

34:58

threatening to push Gaza deeper towards

35:00

famine. UN experts

35:03

have accused Israel of intentionally

35:05

starving the Palestinian people by

35:07

restricting access to aid, with

35:11

dire shortages leading

35:13

to deadly desperation. And

35:19

few hospitals remain in Gaza are

35:21

overrun and desperately lacking in essential

35:23

supplies. Gaza's

35:26

largest medical facility, al-Shifa, now

35:29

turned into a graveyard by Israel's bloody

35:31

14-day siege on the complex. In

35:34

just six months, this war

35:36

has become the deadliest conflict for

35:38

children, aid workers and journalists. Forurat

35:42

al-Marni has worked through multiple wars

35:44

in Gaza, but he says he has

35:46

never seen anything like this before. His

35:50

son, a fellow paramedic, was killed by

35:52

an Israeli airstrike while responding to an

35:55

emergency call. Others

35:57

have lost tens of family members. But

36:01

losing my son feels like I've lost the

36:03

entire world. It's

36:05

desperate to escape Israel's near-constant air

36:08

assault in Gaza. More

36:13

than a million people have sought refuge in

36:15

the southern border city of Rafah, where

36:18

Israel says it is preparing

36:20

free-ground incursion, a move the

36:22

UN warns would lead to

36:25

unimaginable disaster. Israel's

36:27

actions in Gaza have triggered a genocide

36:30

hearing at the International Court of Justice,

36:34

allegations Israel denies, and

36:36

a UN Security Council resolution calling

36:38

for an immediate ceasefire. But

36:41

hopes for peace remain elusive. The

36:46

beach makes me forget our pain, our

36:48

sadness, our martyrs, all we have says.

36:52

Every time I come, I complain to

36:54

the sea, hoping that God will respond

36:56

and finally take us away from this pain.

37:01

Another Bashir reporting there. This

37:06

week on The Assignment with me, Adi

37:09

Cornish. Since the Supreme Court opened the

37:11

doors to commercial betting in 2018, there are now 38

37:15

states plus the District of Columbia, where

37:17

sports wagers are legal. I'm Rex Chapman.

37:19

Gambling, I started going with my father

37:21

when I was a little kid, like

37:24

five, six years old to the racetrack.

37:26

We'll learn what it's like to have

37:28

a gambling addiction and why the lawyer

37:31

who took on Big Tobacco has his

37:33

eye on digital betting. Listen

37:35

to The Assignment with Adi Cornish on Spotify.

37:40

Next to the future of work

37:42

here in America, where artificial intelligence

37:44

is taking hold and fears of

37:47

unemployment are growing. Elon Musk called

37:49

it the most disruptive force in

37:51

history, and 75 percent

37:53

of Americans, adults think AI will

37:56

lead to job losses. According

37:58

to a recent Gallup poll, that is. But

38:00

MIT economics professor David Autor

38:03

says this fear is actually

38:05

misplaced. He joins Walter

38:07

Isaacson to discuss the opportunities AI

38:09

will bring. Thank

38:12

you, Christiane and Professor David Autor. Welcome to

38:15

the show. Thank you very much for

38:17

having me. You're a labor

38:19

economist. You've looked at how technology

38:21

affects jobs, and you have a

38:24

new piece out about artificial intelligence

38:26

saying that AI could actually help

38:29

rebuild the middle class. But

38:31

before we get to that, let's do a

38:33

little bit of a walk through history. For

38:36

a long time, whether it's back in the Luddites

38:38

in the early 1800s, they felt technology would

38:42

destroy jobs. The followers of Ned

38:45

Ludd smashed the looms of England.

38:48

Has there ever been a case

38:50

where technology decreases the total number

38:52

of jobs? It doesn't

38:54

normally decrease them, but it does change

38:56

them a lot. And the Luddites were

38:58

not off base. Their artisanal skills were

39:00

devalued by power looms. And

39:02

the transition from the artisanal

39:05

era, where people made things by hand

39:07

with tremendous expertise from start to finish,

39:09

to the early industrial era, was wrenching

39:11

for labor. It displaced a

39:14

lot of skilled, valuable skills, people

39:16

who were tailors

39:18

and blacksmiths

39:21

and wheelwrights and so on. And

39:23

what we end up with initially was a lot of unmarried

39:27

women and children working

39:29

in indentured servitude in dangerous

39:31

factories using very few skills

39:34

and getting paid very little. And the

39:36

first five decades of the Industrial Revolution were not

39:38

a good time for labor. Wages

39:41

didn't rise, even though productivity rose. And

39:43

why was that? Because expertise,

39:47

what was needed was not scarce.

39:49

You just needed people, physical bodies,

39:51

who could tend machines. Now that

39:53

changed over time as industry advanced.

39:55

The machines became more complex until the

39:58

industrial era eventually gave rise. to

40:00

a period of what I'm going to call

40:02

demand for mass expertise. People who could do

40:04

those skilled tasks on assembly lines, but also

40:06

in offices, right, you know, you can think

40:08

of a, you know, early 20th

40:11

century offices being like an assembly line for information.

40:14

And although that set of skills was quite

40:16

different, not like the artisans, they weren't making

40:18

cars from end to end, you know, one

40:20

person at a time, but the ability to

40:22

operate a lathe, or to

40:24

install a wheel, or to

40:26

proofread and typeset a document,

40:28

those were valuable skills. They

40:30

were made very productive and

40:32

efficient by automation, by the

40:34

Industrial Revolution, by this new

40:36

way of organizing work. And

40:39

that led to a lot of economic growth,

40:41

both for consumers and for workers that powered

40:43

us from really the late 18th century

40:45

all the way up through the 1980s. So

40:49

in other words, productivity

40:51

growth, new technology, ends

40:53

up helping the economy, creating a whole

40:56

new set of jobs, but it ends

40:58

up being wrenching and leaving people behind.

41:00

Is that what you're saying? Absolutely.

41:02

And when it creates valuable jobs is

41:05

when it rewards human expertise. When

41:07

it, it's what is expertise? Expertise is,

41:10

you know, the specific know-how to do something valuable.

41:12

So just to give you an example, think

41:15

of the job of air traffic controller and

41:17

crossing guard. These are basically the

41:19

same job, actually. It's a job to prevent, you

41:21

know, people and machines from colliding with one another,

41:24

or machines and machines colliding with one another. And

41:26

yet, air traffic controllers get paid

41:28

more than four times what crossing

41:31

guards get paid. And the difference is

41:34

not social value. If we had to spend a lot

41:36

of money to prevent our children from being run over

41:38

on the way to school, we would spend that money,

41:40

right? It's a question of expertise. It

41:42

takes several years of flight traffic control school

41:45

and then hundreds to thousands of hours of

41:47

apprenticeship to become a credentialed

41:50

air traffic controller. To become a

41:52

crossing guard requires no

41:54

training or credentialing in almost any

41:56

state. And therefore, the

41:58

people who can do it are abundant. And so

42:01

it pays low wages. And that

42:03

was true of early factory work as well. So

42:05

it's never been a question in the

42:08

United States certainly of the quantity of jobs,

42:10

but it has been about the quality. And quality means

42:13

using human expertise. You wrote

42:15

a seminal paper about 10 years ago

42:18

called Why Are There Still So Many

42:20

Jobs? And it really came out of

42:22

a period in the 1960s when everybody

42:24

said automation would totally put us out

42:26

of work. What

42:29

was your point in that story

42:31

and what did we get wrong

42:33

about leaving people behind? The

42:35

main point of that article is that

42:38

we had entered a different industrial era

42:40

with a computer revolution. And that actually

42:42

competed with the expertise of

42:44

workers in factories and offices who were

42:46

carrying out these literate, numerate tasks. They

42:48

were skilled tasks, but they followed well

42:50

understood rules and procedures. And

42:53

so that actually caused workers

42:55

to be pushed out of middle skill

42:58

jobs, out of production jobs, out of

43:00

office jobs, out of administrative support and

43:02

clerical jobs. And it created a bifurcated

43:05

labor market. On the one hand,

43:07

if you're a professional or technical or managerial

43:09

worker, you're a decision maker. And

43:12

computing is a great input into decision

43:14

making. It gives you data, it

43:16

gives you analysis, it gives you all the

43:18

information you need. You still have to do

43:20

the hard work of deciding how do I

43:22

care for this cancer patient, how do I

43:24

design a building that people want to live

43:27

in, how do I architect a piece of

43:29

software, how do I contract and re-engineer a

43:31

house. So those are hard decisions. Computing

43:33

is really valuable, makes that work better,

43:36

makes people more valuable in doing that work. For

43:39

those people, however, who were not fortunate enough to

43:41

have a college education, which is more than half

43:43

of the workforce, many of them,

43:45

as they were moved out of middle skill jobs, they

43:48

ended up in services that

43:50

used relatively generic expertise.

43:52

Food service, cleaning,

43:54

security, entertainment, recreation,

43:58

home care. And again, those

44:00

jobs are certainly valuable, but because they

44:02

don't require specialized skills and expertise, they

44:05

pay poorly. And so the computer revolution,

44:07

it didn't reduce employment. We

44:10

have high unemployment population ratios.

44:13

What it did was it bifurcated the labor

44:15

force and cut out the middle rungs of

44:17

the ladder that weakened the middle

44:20

class, reduced economic mobility, and

44:22

created a big divide between

44:25

more educated and less educated workers. And

44:27

that's really what we've been contending with

44:30

for the last four decades, from approximately 1980 to

44:32

approximately 2020. We've been

44:35

really feeling the effects of this polarization

44:39

of employment. So now let's go

44:41

to the era of artificial intelligence,

44:43

the era of AI. We've gone through

44:45

50 years since the advent

44:47

of the personal computer. And as you've

44:50

explained, it's hollowed out sort of

44:52

the middle class, the middle worker,

44:55

in favor of those with high

44:57

end expertise. Will

44:59

AI change that? It

45:02

has the potential to change that if we use it

45:04

well. So let me say,

45:06

what is AI? What makes it even

45:08

different from traditional computing? So traditional computing

45:11

followed rules. It follows what we call

45:14

inductive logic. It just does the steps until it gets to

45:16

an answer. Artificial intelligence is

45:18

the opposite. It learns inductively. And

45:20

it learns from examples. It learns

45:23

from looking at unstructured data and

45:25

drawing out patterns and recognizing regularities

45:27

that are useful for making

45:30

decisions, for predicting what's going to come next.

45:32

And in fact, it's an irony, it's

45:35

actually the opposite of traditional computing. If

45:37

I told you the world's frontier computer

45:39

technology can't do math and can't keep

45:41

facts straight, you'd say, that doesn't sound

45:43

like a very advanced technology. But that's

45:45

what AI is, right? It's

45:48

really good at learning from

45:51

example and extrapolating from example.

45:53

And so that makes it

45:55

potentially a very good decision

45:57

support tool because it recognizes

46:00

you know, patterns and regularities like we do when

46:02

we're making a judgment about how to care for

46:04

a patient or, you know, how to build a

46:06

building or how to do research

46:08

or even how to teach. Well, wait, so how is

46:10

that going to help the middle skilled

46:13

wash work? So let me give you an

46:15

example that I think is motivating. It actually

46:17

has nothing to do with AI specifically. Let's

46:19

take the job of the nurse practitioner. So

46:22

nurse practitioners are registered nurses who have

46:24

an additional master's degree in training and

46:27

they do things that nurses were

46:30

not allowed to do some decades ago and doctors

46:32

were exclusively allowed to do, which is to diagnose,

46:35

to prescribe medications and to

46:37

treat. And

46:39

they are essentially a kind of a

46:41

middle class of medical professional. Now there

46:43

are several hundred thousand in the

46:45

United States. It's a well-paid job, better than

46:47

registered nurses. Now it came

46:49

about not because of technology, it came about because of

46:51

social movement, nurses, primarily

46:53

women, recognized they're underused and they fought

46:56

like hell against the American Medical Association

46:58

to carve out a new field and

47:00

a credential and a scope of practice.

47:03

But at this point they're very heavily

47:05

supported by technology, electronic medical records, diagnostic

47:07

software, prescription software, and that enables them

47:09

to do a broader scope of work.

47:12

And so not only has this created a

47:15

valuable job, it creates a valuable patient service.

47:17

You don't have to wait as long to

47:19

see a doctor and it's not as expensive

47:21

to do so. And so it broadens the

47:23

availability of care. And it's

47:25

not hard to imagine a future where people

47:28

with additional medical training or even nurse

47:30

practitioners could do a broader set of

47:32

activities without having to bring in the

47:34

most expensive professional in the room. And

47:37

that matters because most

47:39

of these elite professions that we're speaking of,

47:41

they require a bachelor's degree plus

47:43

a master's degree, a PhD or a

47:45

JD or an MD or

47:47

an MBA. Nurse practitioners

47:49

are also highly credentialed, but they're not at

47:51

that same level. And this

47:54

example is just an example. It

47:56

could be true in, you can

47:58

imagine that, a contractor who has

48:00

better tools to scope out what

48:03

are the viable kitchen designs, what are

48:05

the, you know, what are certifiable engineering

48:07

designs so that the building will stand,

48:09

etc. You can,

48:13

yeah, so I could, or even in law,

48:15

right, people who are not, do

48:17

not have as much, and many years

48:19

of legal experience could potentially still do

48:21

more valuable work. So the

48:23

good scenario, right, as I mentioned

48:26

earlier, you know, six out of ten US workers do

48:28

not have a four-year college degree. Most

48:30

of them are found in these

48:32

low-paid services that aren't using

48:35

specialized skills. If more

48:37

of those workers with additional supporting training

48:40

could do medical care, could

48:42

do legal services, could do

48:44

design, and so we

48:46

will know if we're succeeding with

48:49

this technology, if we enable

48:51

people without four-year college degrees to do

48:53

more valuable decision-making work, to open up

48:55

the field of expertise such that it's

48:57

not to say to eliminate the, you

48:59

know, I'm just saying we're going to

49:02

get rid of doctors and lawyers and

49:04

computer programmers, but to now enable

49:06

more people to do that work at

49:09

some level. So what

49:11

you're saying is that somebody with a

49:14

high school diploma, but not a college

49:16

degree, who probably lost out a bit

49:18

in the information and computer revolution, they

49:21

can be empowered to do things

49:23

that now take experts to do.

49:26

Right. Again, with the right training, right,

49:28

you wouldn't just say, hey, you know, I've

49:31

got this tool for you, go take

49:33

care of this patient and, you know, do

49:35

it, you know, perform some

49:38

procedure, you know, insert a catheter or something. That would be

49:40

a terrible idea, right? Something's going to go

49:42

wrong and the patient's going to, there'll

49:45

be an emergency and the person won't know what to do. But

49:47

it could be, it's quite plausible that I would

49:49

say, hey, you have a two year medical certificate

49:52

in x-ray technology or you're

49:54

a physical

49:57

therapist and so on, and here's, you can

49:59

do a broader. range of procedures, now

50:02

that you have the judgment and you

50:04

have the foundational knowledge, you have a

50:07

better tool that allows you to go

50:09

further with that knowledge. Previous technology revolutions

50:11

throughout history generally hurt

50:13

those with less skills,

50:16

less education. This one

50:19

perhaps will disrupt jobs of

50:21

the most educated. Which

50:24

jobs are the most threatened?

50:26

I think the jobs that

50:29

have the most opportunity for being

50:32

substantially automated are

50:34

ones that are kind of mid-level

50:38

decision-making tasks

50:40

and managerial work, for example. But

50:43

simultaneously, we can also

50:45

see greater capacity

50:48

for more people to do that type of work. We

50:51

see a number of experiments where we see what

50:53

AI does is it kind of

50:56

levels the productivity differences between more

50:58

and less experienced workers. We see

51:00

that in writing tasks, we

51:02

see that in customer support tasks, like

51:05

technical customer support tasks, we

51:07

see that in even a bunch

51:09

of consulting and analytic tasks that

51:11

often the tool complements judgments, enables

51:13

people to do better work. If

51:15

that's true, then potentially

51:18

it can lower the barriers to

51:20

entry. Now, there's a counter argument

51:23

to this, there's probably many, but one

51:25

of them, he will say, well, okay, let's say it

51:27

makes your nurse practitioner 5% better, 20% better, but makes

51:31

the best doctor 100 or 1,000% better. Doesn't

51:36

that make the nurse practitioner no

51:38

longer competitive? I

51:40

would say the answer to that is no. The

51:42

reason is because doctors have capacity

51:45

constraints. If the best doctor

51:47

in the world gets 100 times better, I'm still never

51:49

going to see that doctor. That's not

51:51

relevant to me. So many, many services cannot

51:55

be dominated by one expert. You

51:59

need too much one-on-one. whether that's

52:01

a legal case, whether

52:03

that's education, whether that's

52:05

medicine, whether that's design,

52:07

right, whether that's research.

52:09

And so you're going to have to,

52:12

a lot of people will have to

52:14

be involved. Health care is the best

52:16

example, right? There's infinite demand for labor

52:18

there and that's not going to go

52:21

away. But you're talking about democratizing expertise.

52:23

Couldn't it happen though that that just

52:25

makes some of the experts redundant at

52:27

a certain point instead of a great

52:29

teacher? I'll have Khan Academy's Khanmigo as

52:32

a personal tutor and likewise even for

52:34

most of legal work or medical work,

52:36

those can be replaced by great AI

52:38

in five or ten years. In

52:41

some cases it's going to create more competition, right?

52:43

It's definitely going to create more competition at the

52:45

top and in a way that's

52:47

good, right? The problem we face is a

52:49

lot of our inequality is driven by very

52:52

very high wages for highly educated

52:54

workers. I'm not saying they're not

52:57

working hard, they haven't earned that

52:59

money, but that scarcity actually is

53:01

a problem for the rest of us, right? You

53:05

and I, we're professionals, it's great. If we pay for health

53:07

care and it's expensive, we say, well great, I'm being rewarded

53:09

well as a professional, good for me. But

53:11

if I'm an auto worker or I work at Walmart,

53:13

I still pay the same price for health care and

53:15

for education. I'm not on the upside of that equation,

53:18

only the downside, right? So

53:20

if we could actually, if

53:22

it was possible to make some of

53:24

those services less expensive, more accessible, it's

53:26

true. We, you know, we made the

53:29

premium salary paid to the most elite

53:31

professionals may go down a bit, but

53:33

if that creates a lot more jobs for others

53:35

that will enable people without as much formal training,

53:37

to still do really good work, I don't mean

53:39

no training, I just mean the right level, and

53:42

it lowers the prices of those

53:44

services for others, makes education more

53:47

affordable, more accessible, actually more interesting.

53:49

If it makes health

53:51

care more available to more folks, if it

53:53

means that, you know, software is actually less

53:56

expensive to create, so you can create, you

53:58

know, customized applications for you. business or

54:00

for your home, right? There's a lot

54:02

of benefit to that. So I'm not

54:04

arguing that everybody always wins. In

54:07

all these cases of technological change, they've always

54:09

created winners and losers, right? The artisans lost

54:11

out, took 50 years for the workers, the

54:13

industrial-era workers to start to benefit. Computerization benefited

54:16

professionals a great deal. It really was not

54:18

good for middle-skilled workers. It was not good

54:20

for office workers. It was not good for

54:22

production workers. It just made a lot of

54:24

their skills redundant. It increased

54:27

aggregate wealth, but, you know, the

54:29

distributional consequences were pretty crappy. Most

54:31

of the time, technology is good

54:34

for the elite and not so good for

54:36

everybody else. This is a case where

54:38

the technology may compete a little more with the elite

54:41

and enable more people to do

54:43

valuable work. So I'm willing to

54:45

take that trade if it's offered. Professor

54:48

David Autor, thank you so much for

54:50

joining us. Thank you so much for inviting

54:52

me. And

54:57

finally tonight, our planet offers

54:59

many wonders today, not only the eclipse.

55:03

Europe's largest active volcano, Mount

55:05

Etna, is captivating tourists and

55:07

residents in Sicily by blowing

55:10

near-perfect smoke rings across the blue

55:12

skies like a giant puffing on

55:14

a cigar. This, too,

55:16

is a rare phenomenon caused by

55:18

a new crater opening on Etna's

55:21

summit. And it is not

55:23

smoke and mirrors. It's real. Abba has

55:25

turned 50 and Mamma Mia! the

55:27

Musical has turned 25. Join

55:29

us tomorrow for my conversation with

55:31

the woman who convinced Abba to put

55:34

that music on the stage, visionary producer

55:36

Judy Kramer. A world tour

55:38

and two hit films later, the musical

55:40

has been seen in over 450 cities across the globe.

55:53

Please, me and I,

55:56

who didn't know! And

56:07

I joined Judy on her West End stage to

56:09

talk about the all-woman creative team

56:11

who made such an

56:13

enduring and beloved phenomenon. Right

56:17

from the beginning when I learned

56:20

to love those ABBA songs and Winner

56:22

Takes It All was my inspiration, that

56:24

song, that woman song, I

56:27

felt it compelled me that there should

56:29

be a stage musical, but it should be

56:31

an original musical. I

56:33

really don't love the term jukebox that

56:35

people have used because it's

56:37

putting popular music on stage. It's

56:40

more a pop musical, if anything.

56:43

But the songs had to earn their

56:45

place and Katherine Johnson's

56:47

story did that.

56:49

She put those wonderful ABBA songs

56:51

into context so you could laugh,

56:53

you could cry. They became

56:55

a dialogue. And

56:59

that is it for now. If you ever

57:01

miss our show you can find the latest

57:03

episode shortly after it airs on our

57:05

podcast. And remember you can always catch

57:07

us online on our website and all

57:09

over social media. Thanks for watching and

57:11

goodbye from New York. When

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