Just Power: Earned prosperity in the intelligence age

The notion that ‘hard work should pay off for anyone who tries hard enough’ is the essential mantra of the United States (and drew your study group lead and many of you to this country and to Harvard) - but it is under existential threat. 

Paths to outsized opportunity in the US are already vulnerable - access to elite higher education is locked down outside of a small cadre of individuals and intergenerational mobility is at record lows

Technology (and especially AI) threaten this further

• Traditional education, ending for most in their mid-twenties, is desperately insufficient for the transformative impact of new emerging tools
• AI shortcutting output risks removing some of the essential developmental aspects of collective learning and growth through struggle
• Leaders are busy differentiating themselves from ‘AI’, but encouraging others to be users not owners - ensuring an economic surplus that is distributed narrowly

And society has separated into two camps - those concerned that outsized outcomes must be intrinsically problematic because they are at others’ expense and those who claim any outsized accomplishments are righteous and others just aren’t trying hard enough.

We need to re-establish a shared commitment to building the solid and just foundations upon which ‘hard work should pay off for anyone’ again becomes possible - as individuals, leaders and as a society. 

In this session we’ll explore the practical steps that enable this - and through which we may also build more fulfilling work lives and more just institutions - ones that are resilient to change in an unprecedented era

We’ll model this session on the Oxford tutorial structure (similar to a Socratic learning method) to push both your and my arguments, to test their robustness and to hone these insights for the better.

Will Sentance - Will comes from a family of public school teachers, before studying at Oxford (2007-10) and Harvard Kennedy School (2012-14), and founding the leading independent tech school in the US with over 4000 graduates from across 30 countries. He is a tech educator with over 2m+ hours of views on his ML/AI/Coding/Entrepreneurship classes, a podcast host and the author of an upcoming book - ‘Just Power: Earned prosperity in the intelligence age’.  willsentance.com

This study group / discussion is open to all HUID holders. Registration is not necessary. 

M-RCBG welcomes individuals with disabilities to participate in its programs. To request accommodations or ask questions about access provided, please email: mrcbg@hks.harvard.edu