Today, Stephen Kotkin speaks with pioneering Stanford AI researcher Fei-Fei Li about her journey through academia and entrepreneurship to the forefront of spatial artificial intelligence; the GoodFellows discuss AI risks and policy with popular author and professor Cal Newport; and Niall Ferguson considers the possibility that mastery of AI might lead the United States and China to become new kinds of empires.
Only in America
Fei-Fei Li, known as the “Godmother of AI,” is one of the pioneering researchers in the field of spatial intelligence. A professor of computer science at Stanford University, she invented ImageNet, which is today widely regarded as one of the driving forces behind the development of modern AI and the deep learning revolution. For Only in America, Li speaks with world-renowned historian Senior Fellow Stephen Kotkin about her educational journey and how it shaped her path to computer science and entrepreneurship. Drawing from her experience as co-founder and CEO of World Labs, she explains how “world models” will extend the promise of generative artificial intelligence to new and consequential domains. Li and Kotkin also discuss the importance of truth-seeking and civic responsibility; the role of curiosity in science; and how the United States can best prepare to meet the transformative potential of artificial intelligence. In other Only in America news, the episode featuring former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi in conversation with Condoleezza Rice was this week announced as a Gold Signal Award Winner. Thank you to everyone who voted for our episodes! Watch or listen here.
Tech Policy, Economics, and History
The latest episode of GoodFellows dives into current fears regarding the development of artificial intelligence, while also considering how to manage risks without destroying innovations with significant positive potential. Cal Newport, a Georgetown University computer scientist and frequent writer on AI matters, joins the hosts to discuss questions he wants Congress to ask of AI executives. Newport also suggests ways to keep AI from undermining secondary and college learning processes, like Georgetown’s phone-free “cognition cloisters.” After that, the fellows discuss what’s fueling the fiery riots across Western Europe and what compelled President Trump to threaten Ukraine with blocked access to the Starlink satellite internet service. Finally, in the “Lightning Round,” the guys reflect on Hoover economist Robert E. Hall receiving a Nobel Prize last week, and on what America’s midterm elections might bring. Watch or listen here.
Writing at Foreign Affairs, Senior Fellow Niall Ferguson and coauthors Lisa Klaassen and Eric Schmidt (former CEO of Google) argue that control over “the large language models, chips, physical infrastructure, and capital that provide the foundations for advanced machine cognition” positions the United States and China to set “the terms of all future scientific and intellectual progress.” The distinctive feature of AI empires, according to the authors, is “not ambition but velocity,” as the formerly extended processes of imperial “expansion, overreach, strain, [and] unraveling” can now proceed at “machine speed.” But the piece also considers how features like central state direction of AI development in China contrast with the market-driven process of innovation in the United States. After considering various possible scenarios for accelerated competition between rival AI empires, the authors conclude that conditions today could lead to imperial collision, the decline of one power, or peaceful coexistence. Read more here. [Subscription required.]
History and Strategy
A new short video based on the research of Distinguished Visiting Fellow Admiral James O. Ellis Jr. points out that Iran did not need a navy to close the Strait of Hormuz and disrupt global trade. Rather, it needed only missiles on shore, drones in the air, and mines beneath the waves. For centuries, Ellis explains, only naval power could determine who used the world's narrow straits, but now even actors without navies can disrupt global trade. To keep the sea lanes open, Ellis’s research argues, America and its allies must deter attempts to close a chokepoint and build the reserves and bypass routes that can blunt the damage when narrow waterways do close. Watch here.
Immigration Policy
In a new research paper for the Hoover Immigration Initiative, Senior Fellow Paola Sapienza charts how changes by the Trump administration to three separate visa streams—the F-1 for students, Optional Practical Training, and the H-1B for working professionals—are likely convincing foreign students and professionals to take their careers elsewhere. All three programs are now facing the threat of outright cancellation, exorbitant fees, and tighter provisions. As Sapienza has documented before, foreign-born students and professionals have an outsized impact on America’s innovation pipeline. But she shows that as a result of recent immigration policy changes, total visa issuances have fallen by roughly half since 2023. Read more here.
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