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00:00Laurence et Laurence.
00:02Larry, so great to have you.
00:06Thank you, thank you.
00:08Laurence.
00:10With the uncertain economy and increasing inflation,
00:14pressure from central banks and interest rates hiking,
00:17are we still in time to avoid a recession or is it too late?
00:24I'll leave it to you, Laurence.
00:26Yes, good morning everyone.
00:28So happy to be there.
00:29And so proud and feel privileged to be with you, Larry.
00:34Larry, you were the first who warned the U.S. and the world
00:41about easy money and the risk of inflation.
00:46But now we are a little bit lost.
00:50The employment is very low.
00:53Innovation is very high, as we can see here at VivaTech.
00:57Still, many predict an economic downturn.
01:04So how do you see the economy now?
01:07Are you optimistic or a little bit negative?
01:12It's never all good or all bad, except for my privilege in being here at this important
01:23conference with you, Laurence, and being so honored by that generous introduction from
01:32from our host.
01:34Unfortunately, my view after the inflation we have had is that what Samuel Johnson said about
01:46second marriage is true of soft landings.
01:55And so my best guess is that those places like Europe and the United States
02:04that have experienced substantial inflation will sometime within the next 18 months go into recession.
02:16And I wish that wasn't going to happen, but I think it is unlikely that inflation will come down
02:27in the absence of recession.
02:31But Laurence, in some ways, much more important than that is this.
02:39Here's a lesson.
02:43Events tend to be bad.
02:47Trends tend to be good.
02:50And while the event of a downturn is not going to be easy and is going to come with strains
03:01and dislocations, there are trends that I think are very, very much in all of our favor.
03:11Trends towards greater capacity to produce.
03:17Trends towards the pervasive availability of data.
03:26You know, people say that data is the new oil.
03:31But in a very important respect, that is wrong.
03:36When you use oil, when oil propels my car, its energy is gone.
03:45When you use data, it is preserved and it is still there for someone else to use.
03:54And to the extent that patterns are found, we as humanity are wiser and are stronger.
04:04So I believe that the trend towards what technology is going to enable us to do is something that
04:19that is going to be positive and is going to be remembered from this time long after any bit of
04:28business cycle is forgotten.
04:32So yes, let us manage as well as we can this coming business cycle.
04:40Yes, it was unfortunate that in the wake of COVID, we have had this inflation.
04:51But let us also stay focused on the long run, on the ultimate goal, the application of all of this
05:03technology to make a profoundly better world.
05:07Well, this is very interesting because if you look at the long run, on the long term, of course, our
05:15concern, I think for all of you, like for yourself, Larry and your children, is climate change.
05:24So, about climate change, some say, we have to stop everything right now and be in a degrowth manner.
05:38Some others say, we have to ask the state to decide some planification.
05:46And some others say, I guess maybe here would say that, let's trust the private sector, let's trust the start
05:59-upers, let's trust the tech industry,
06:02who will be able to find the right tools and at the end, the right path.
06:09What's your view on that?
06:13All of climate change in all of four minutes, only in France, would such a question of such boldness be
06:23posed.
06:27First, climate change, along with the preservation of peace and the containment of disease, is the ultimate challenge of our
06:43time.
06:44And it will be remembered by future historians that this was the era when mankind, for the first time, was
06:55changing the basic terms of life on the only planet that we have.
07:03So, you are right to be focusing on its importance.
07:10The second thing I would say, and I say this with great conviction, is that it is morally wrong and
07:22practically untenable and politically impossible
07:28to imagine stopping growth at a time when 800 million people on our planet go to bed hungry each night,
07:41at a time when so many people still live lives that many of us in this room cannot conceive of,
07:54of destitution, of pain, and of inadequacy.
08:01Most of the world's emissions are not coming from Europe or the United States or Japan.
08:11They are coming from what have traditionally been regarded as the developing countries.
08:19And those nations will not accept and should not morally accept stagnation.
08:28And so, the only alternative, the only moral alternative, and the only practical alternative is more abundant, more clean, more
08:47renewable energy.
08:50And fortunately, technology is making that possible.
08:56It is not yet Moore's law.
09:00It probably never will be Moore's law.
09:04But if one looks at the progress that has come in renewables, if one looks at the kind of progress
09:13that is in prospect in storage and transmission technologies,
09:20if one looks at what electrons can do, what electrification can do, I am convinced that we can build a
09:36global economy that is truly global,
09:40that is based on abundant capacity to produce and exchange, and that makes more prosperity for more people than ever
09:54before, and that is much less injurious to nature than we have seen.
10:05We often doom and gloom when we talk about the environment, but I am here to tell you that in
10:16my area of the United States, New England, there are three times as many trees as there were a century
10:24ago.
10:25I am here to tell you that the air in almost every major city in a rich country is cleaner
10:35than it was when I was a child.
10:40And so I believe we need to believe in an environmentalism of progress and prosperity.
10:51And I believe that if we are going to achieve that, we need to move beyond the traditional simplistic debate
11:02of the state versus the private sector.
11:08It is like debating whether I walk more effectively with my right foot or with my left foot.
11:16The reality is that I do not walk forward without both feet.
11:23It is naive in the extreme to suppose that the private sector alone, without coordination, without support, without encouragement, will
11:42bring about a green transition.
11:45It is the simplest idea in the world that every five-year-old knows, which came first, the chicken or
11:55the egg, to know that you will not have both electrification stations and electric cars without someone coordinating.
12:10You will not have both renewable energy produced in the world's warmest places and transmission lines without coordination and support.
12:26You will not have, in a world where companies have to compete with each other, you will not have the
12:35virtue of that being virtuous and protecting the environment without legal frameworks.
12:49So, there is no alternative to government.
12:54France has always stood in the global community for a strong state, and it has stood for strong global governance,
13:05and France has been right in that insistence, and France's voice is going to be hugely important going forward.
13:14France has Best interessante, and France has proved to be in the world that has beenilleDeIch.
13:15France has been הוא喜歡ű喜歡, equally, equally, you cannot look at what has been accomplished in
13:25information technology, and fail to every time to lay frickencia in the importance of entrepreneurship and
13:36France has każdym the importance of the dasnitudes of English.
13:38lundiggas the importance of the private sector, the importance of companies,ieve 무대icks is absolutelyamistech in America,
13:43let me say it, the importance of capitalism. Without those things, we are not going to
13:53make progress fast enough and strongly enough. We are not going to disseminate what is necessary
14:05as rapidly as we possibly can. And so what we need is not a sterile debate between the invisible
14:20hand and the heavy hand of the market and the heavy hand of government. What we need is a helping
14:31hand of government working with the market to support the necessary transition. And I believe
14:43that from the mist and the gloom and from an infinity of meetings, many of which, it must
14:52be said, have rather boring speeches. I believe that progress is coming towards a better, cleaner,
15:04safer world. And I think we need to recognize, we need to recognize that when people like our
15:16host here, started decades ago talking about the intangible economy alongside the tangible economy.
15:29Started talking about bits as well as atoms. Those were philosophical ideas. But just as
15:41said that civilizations rise and fall based on ideas developed by professors in the quiet of their
15:56study. These kinds of thoughts and reflections and their translation into action, what conferences
16:06like this are about are ultimately what drives progress.
16:13But Larry, don't you think, first of all, thank you for what you said because it gives hope. But don't
16:22you think that the United States on this issue is lagging behind and that we need the U.S. much
16:31more involved, much more leading the green transition, I would say.
16:42I am a patriot and I am not on American soil. So I want to be careful about what I
16:50say about the United States.
16:53I think there is much that we can be proud of in the United States. You know, ultimately it is
17:04entrepreneurship that is so important.
17:07No doubt.
17:08I said a generation ago when I was the Minister of Finance of the United States that part of what
17:17made the United States so special
17:20was that we were the place where you could raise your first hundred million dollars before you bought your first
17:27suit.
17:29And that ability had made us very special. And that is why we host Google and Facebook and Tesla and
17:40Microsoft and so many others who are at the vanguard of change.
17:48But, but, yes, if the United States, there is a certain vanity among nations and it is perhaps something that
18:04your nation and our nation share.
18:07I do not think there are many other countries besides the United States and possibly France who would choose to
18:14refer to themselves as the indispensable nation.
18:19And if we wish to live up to that, we are going to have to lead much more strongly on
18:28the environment that we have led.
18:30And leading does not just mean, it does mean supporting American businesses, but it does not mean only supporting American
18:41businesses.
18:42It means supporting global institutions that provide capital, that do their work globally, that stand for strong standards globally.
18:59I am honored this year to be co-chairing a panel that is advising the G20 heads of state on
19:17the reform of the World Bank and the other multilateral development banks.
19:25And I am here to tell you that the global system will have failed if the lending capacity of those
19:36institutions is not multiplied many times over, over the next generation.
19:43If they do not take on missions along with reconstruction and development of sustainability, if they continue to stand apart
20:00and alone doing their own projects and then letting the private sector do its own projects rather than cooperating and
20:10working together.
20:14And yes, I believe that as the largest shareholder in those institutions, we in the United States have an essential
20:24role, an essential role in listening, and then listening again, and then reflecting on what we have heard.
20:34And then also being part of a process of leading.
20:44Yes, the United States has, in important respects, lagged.
20:52But yes, the United States can also lead.
20:59You know, Winston Churchill did not actually ever say something that I wish he had said because it's often attributed
21:09to him and it says something real, I think, about my country.
21:13He said he is said to have said the United States always does the right thing, but only after exhausting
21:24all the alternatives.
21:26And that is something we need to remember at this historic moment.
21:35Well, let's finish with this idea about the United States always doing the right thing after all the others.
21:44What about AI? Are we doing the right thing? Is it just a job market disruptor or is it much
21:57more than that? Do we have to prepare a legal framework? What's your view on AI?
22:08You have three minutes on AI. It's easy. Here's what I think I know.
22:22Technologies do less in the short run than you think they will.
22:27And then they do far more in the long run than you ever thought they could.
22:36And so it will be with AI.
22:42I think AI will change in profound ways.
22:51Perhaps not. I'm 68 years old.
22:54The way in which I live.
22:56But certainly the way in which my children live and when I have them, my grandchildren.
23:08Yes, we need legal frameworks.
23:12Yes, we need to define what it means to be Larry Summers and to have Larry Summers' voice in a
23:24world where a near perfect replica of Larry Summers can be produced.
23:31No, no, it's impossible. It's impossible to replicate.
23:34We need to think about what is happening with the quality of the discourse and what is genuine.
23:48But I think there's something else. And I think it's going to change humanity.
23:57I think that since the Enlightenment, we have lived in a world that has been defined so much by IQ,
24:11by cognitive processing, by developing new ideas.
24:21And as that becomes more and more a commodity, more and more something that can be replicated with data and
24:36analysis, we are going to head into a world that is going to be defined much more by EQ.
24:46By the emotional quotient rather than the intelligence quotient.
24:55And that is going to be a very different place.
24:58It is a world where a nurse who can hold a scared patient's hand is going to be more valuable
25:09than a doctor who can process test results and make a diagnosis.
25:18It is going to be a world where a salesperson who can form a relationship is going to be a
25:31profound source of value in a business.
25:37It is going to be a world where the products of emotion, the arts, are going to rise relative to
25:48the products of the intellect, science.
25:53I think in many ways it is going to be a wonderful world, but it is going to be a
26:00very different world.
26:02And it is going to be a world for all of us. Yes, in universities. Yes, in governments. And yes,
26:14in the private sector. At summits like this, it is going to be for all of us to shape.
26:23Well, Larry, what I can say, it was a great emotion in terms of EQ. It was a great emotion
26:31to welcome you here at VivaTech.
26:34I hope that you will be there next year because we welcome and we are very grateful for your very
26:44thoughtful vision.
26:46Thank you very much, Larry. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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