Financial Times reporter Andrew Hill highlights Prof. Zeynep Ton’s new book “The Case for Good Jobs: How Great Companies Bring Dignity, Pay, and Meaning to Everyone’s Work” in a roundup of his best books of the year thus far. “Ton has assembled a hard-to-dispute argument that better and better-paid jobs contribute to a virtuous circle of greater competitiveness, productivity and, above all, worker dignity and wellbeing,” writes Hill.
“Power and Progress,” a new book by Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu and Prof. Simon Johnson, has been named one of the best new books on economics by the Financial Times. “The authors’ nuanced take on technological development provides insights on how we can ensure the coming AI revolution leads to widespread benefits for the many, not just the tech bros,” writes Tej Parikh.
Writing for The New York Times, Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu and Prof Simon Johnson make the case that “rather than machine intelligence, what we need is ‘machine usefulness,’ which emphasizes the ability of computers to augment human capabilities. This would be a much more fruitful direction for increasing productivity. By empowering workers and reinforcing human decision making in the production process, it also would strengthen social forces that can stand up to big tech companies.”
New York Times reporter Natasha Singer spotlights the Day of AI, an MIT RAISE program aimed at teaching K-12 students about AI. “Because AI is such a powerful new technology, in order for it to work well in society, it really needs some rules,” said MIT President Sally Kornbluth. Prof. Cynthia Breazeal, MIT’s dean of digital learning, added: “We want students to be informed, responsible users and informed, responsible designers of these technologies.”
Meghan Maupin MS ’18 has been named CEO of OurX, a Black hair care company that “taps into six years of research and data mining to create hair regimens and education for the scalp and tightly textured hair,” reports Christine Hall for TechCrunch.
Boston Globe reporter Kara Miller spotlights Prof. Zeynep Ton’s work advocating for better treatment and pay for workers. Ton, who originally came to the Boston area to study supply chains, recently published a new book, “The Case for Good Jobs,” and is “on a mission to change how company leaders think, and how they treat their employees,” writes Baskin. “To Ton, the solution is clear: Treat people better, give them more control over their lives, close the income divide. It’s just good business.”
Prof. Danielle Li and graduate student Lindsey Raymond speak with NPR hosts Wailin Wong and Adrian Ma about how generative artificial intelligence could impact the workplace based on their research examining how an AI chatbot affected workers at customer contact centers. “A lot of what customer service is, is about managing people's feelings 'cause people come, they're tired or whatever,” says Li. “And so in some sense there's kind of this sort of human soft skills component that these technologies are able to capture in a way that prior technologies couldn't.”
Neil Thompson, director of the FutureTech research project at MIT CSAIL and a principal investigator MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy, speaks with Politico reporter Mohar Chatterjee about generative AI, the pace of computer progress and the need for the U.S. to invest more in developing the future of computing. “We need to make sure we have good secure factories that can produce cutting-edge semiconductors,” says Thompson. “The CHIPS Act covers that. And people are starting to invest in some of these post-CMOS technologies — but it just needs to be much more. These are incredibly important technologies.”
Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with VOX Talks host Tim Phillips about his new book written with Prof. Simon Johnson, “Power and Progress.” The book explores “how we can redirect the path of innovation,” Phillips explains.
Prof. Alexey Makarin and his colleagues have found that following the arrival of Facebook, depression, anxiety and diminished academic performance increased across U.S. colleges, reports Jesse Greenspan for Scientific American. “Makarin says much of the harm they documented came from social comparisons,” explains Greenspan.
Bloomberg reporter Adrian Wooldridge spotlights a new book titled “Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity” by Prof. Simon Johnson and Prof. Daron Acemoglu. “The authors’ main worry about AI is not that it will do something unexpected like blowing up the world,” writes Wooldridge. “It is that it will supercharge the current regime of surveillance, labor substitution and emotional manipulation.”
President Sally Kornbluth spoke with reporters from The Tech about her first months as president of MIT and her vision for her time leading the Institute. “MIT is a pretty decentralized place, so I am taking some time to get to know every nook and cranny,” says Kornbluth. She adds that in terms of her top priorities as president, “there's no question that climate change is at the very top of the list.”
Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu discusses AI and the labor market, the history of technological progress and Turkey with Financial Times columnist Rana Foroohar. “I think the skills of a carpenter or a gardener or an electrician or a writer, those are just the greatest achievements of humanity, and I think we should try to elevate those skills and elevate those contributions,” says Acemoglu. “Technology could do that, but that means to use technology not to replace these people, not to automate those tasks, but to increase their productivity.”
Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with Wired reporters Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode about his new book with Prof. Simon Johnson, “Power and Progress.” Acemoglu explains that: “The way I would put it is, don't think of your labor as a cost to be cut. Think of your labor as a human resource to be used better, and AI would be an amazing tool for it. Use AI to allow workers to make better decisions.”
Guardian reporter Will Hutton spotlights “Power and Progress,” a new book by Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu and Prof. Simon Johnson that makes the case that “the political struggle has consistently aimed to contain excessive inequality of wealth, and act collectively to share prosperity. It is successive waves of transformative technologies above all that bring the productivity gains that create great wealth, only for it to be captured by the incumbent elite.”