Progress studies began in earnest with a 2019 Atlantic essay called “We Need a New Science of Progress,” written by Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison and Marginal Revolution author Tyler Cowen (n.b.: Tyler is also Chairman of the Mercatus Center, where I work). The essay argued that there needed to be a new intellectual movement that studied the causes of material and civilizational progress. By understanding progress as a phenomenon, Collison and Cowen reasoned, we might be able to improve the organizations and institutions that facilitate progress, and thereby put an end to the “Great Stagnation,” or the period of technological and economic slowdown that Cowen argues have persisted since the 1970s.

None of this is news to most people who attended the Root’s of Progress Institute’s Progress Conference, which I attended this past weekend as part of my participation in the Institute’s Blog-Building Intensive (which I strongly recommend if you are a newish writer interested in progress-related issues). Indeed, part of what made it such an exceptional event was the palpable sense of urgency in every panel, every keynote, and every impromptu debate.

But another reason that AI is the source of the largest disagreements within progress studies is that AI is, to put it simply, “the big one.” Many people within progress studies believe it will be an epochal technology, ushering in not just an industrial revolution but a new era in human affairs. I suspect those who do not will change their minds soon. And when you are facing a new epoch, all sorts of bad outcomes are on the table. I view “getting AI right” as a grand challenge for both our society in general and for progress studies in particular.