#41 – Michael Bhaskar on Big Ideas and the Great Stagnation

Michael Bhaskar is a writer, researcher and publisher. He is a former consultant Writer in Residence at DeepMind, and most recently he wrote a book called Human Frontiers, which tries to answer the question: “why has the flow of big, world-changing ideas slowed down?” In our conversation, we discuss — The 'Adams curve' How so much of the modern world was invented in exceptional 20th century research institutes such as Bell Labs and Xerox PARC Evidence for slowdown in new ideas from analysing the patent record Whether scientific progress is limitless, or whether there are things we'll never be able to know Whether 'big ideas' are also slowing in the arts Reasons for optimism about progress in big ideas, especially from advanced AI You can read more about the topics we cover in this episode's write-up: hearthisidea.com/episodes/michael/. If you have any feedback or suggestions for future guests, feel free to get in touch through our website. Consider leaving us a review wherever you're listening to this — it's the best free way to support the show. If you want to support the show more directly, consider leaving a tip. Thanks for listening!