Growth - A Reckoning
Over the past two centuries, economic growth has freed billions from poverty and made our lives far healthier and longer. As a result, the unfettered pursuit of growth defines economic life around the world. Yet this prosperity has come at an enormous price: deepening inequalities, destabilizing technologies, environmental destruction and climate change. Confusion reigns. For many, in our era of anaemic economic progress, the worry is slowing growth – in the UK, Europe, China and elsewhere. Others understandably claim, given its costs, that the only way forward is through ‘degrowth’, deliberating shrinking our economies.
224th Lecture Series Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow
Date: Wednesday 15 October 2025
Time: 19:30 - 21:00
Venue: Charles Wilson Building, Lecture Theatre 201
Category: Public lectures
Speaker: Dr Daniel Susskind
Dr Daniel Susskind is a writer and economist. He explores the impact of technology, and particularly AI, on work and society. He is Mercers’ School Memorial Professor of Business at Gresham College, a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Ethics in AI at Oxford University, a Digital Fellow at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, and an Associate Member of the Economics Department at Oxford University.
His recent book, Growth: A Reckoning (2024), was chosen by President Obama as one of his ‘Favourite Books of 2024’. Daniel is also the author of A World Without Work (2020), and co-author of The Future of the Professions (2015), both highly very praised. His TED Talk, on the future of work, has been viewed more than 1.7 million times. He is currently working on his next book, What Should My Children Do? How to Flourish in the Age of AI. Previously he worked in various roles in the British Government – the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, the Policy Unit in 10 Downing Street, and the Cabinet Office. He was a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard University. He will give the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow Adam Smith Lecture on 15th October 2025.