Peking University, September 6, 2025: Larry Kramer, President of London School of Economics and Political Science, delivered a lecture at Peking University on September 5. It was titled, “AI for Global Good - Future Technologies and Society.” In his talk, he explored how emerging technologies are reshaping the way we live and the opportunities and challenges they present for humanity.
Kramer views AI innovation as fundamentally different from previous technological revolutions. Due to AI's strong adaptability, he believes it will progressively displace jobs. Although AI poses many new challenges, he argues that the technology itself is never the problem, but rather how we choose to use it. He stated that social science, not the technology, will inform us who becomes the beneficiary and who bears the cost. “All of that is up to us,” said Kramer. In this new era of AI advancement, social science must be redefined to tackle novel problems. “We need to focus on that part of them in order to make the technologies work for our benefit.”
He noted that while most economic policies incentivize increased productivity and efficiency, AI's superior efficiency forces us to rethink our focus toward the preservation of jobs. We must create new incentives for employers to adopt a human-centered framework, though he admits this presents complicated economic and legal questions.
Kramer identified five priorities for AI development and governance: keeping people at the center of innovation; being aware of AI's comprehensive social impact; building inclusive AI design and adaptive governance; having policymakers measure the metrics that matter; and investing in human capabilities to steward the technology.
He concluded by sharing, “The distribution is a choice, governance is a choice，investment is a choice. The inventions that we celebrate are absolutely essential，but it's the institutions that we build around them - they determine whether they solve problems.”
Written by: Aden Tan
Edited by: Chen Shizhuo
Photo by: Yan Linlin
