A study by MIT researchers shows that “workers have cost employers a 25% tax rate, while the rate of software and equipment has stood around 5%,” write Diego Areas Munhoz and Samantha Handler for Bloomberg. “This lopsidedness in tax code gives employers more reason to invest in automating goods like machines and computer software instead of workers.”
“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.”
Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have published a study on why voters who value democracy participate in democratic backsliding, reports Jason Willick for The Washington Post. The authors have identified “a strong linear relationship between perceptions of the other side’s willingness to subvert democracy and partisans’ own willingness to do so,” writes Willick.
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.”
Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu and Prof. Aleksander Mądry join GBH’s Greater Boston to explore how AI can be regulated and safely integrated into our lives. “With much of our society driven by informational spaces — in particular social media and online media in general — AI and, in particular, generative AI accelerates a lot of problems like misinformation, spam, spear phishing and blackmail,” Mądry explains. Acemoglu adds that he feels AI reforms should be approached “more broadly so that AI researchers actually work in using these technologies in human-friendly ways, trying to make humans more empowered and more productive.”
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.
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.”
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.”
A new working paper by Prof. Christian Wolf and his colleagues explores a “mechanism by which a government could run deficits and never have to pay them,” reports Peter Coy for The New York Times. The researchers found that “‘deficits contribute to their own financing via two channels.’ First, they can accelerate economic growth, which generates more tax revenue. Second, they can cause inflation to rise, which shrinks the effective cost of debt.
Prof. David Autor speaks with Greg Rosalsky of NPR’s Planet Money about the potential benefits and downsides of AI, sharing his hope that with the right policies in place to help prepare workers AI could be harnessed to help “reinstate the middle class.” Says Autor: "Basically, the middle-skilled workers of the future could be people who have foundational skills in healthcare, in the trades, in travel and services. Then, with the help of AI, they could get really good at these jobs.”
Prof. James Poterba, president of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a member on the Business Cycle Dating Committee, speaks with NBC Boston reporter Annie Nova about the practice of dating economic downturns. Poterba notes that examining economic fluctuations “helps to design policy going forward. It enables us to look back and say, for example, what are the consequences of interest rate increases?”
Prof. David Singer speaks with Bloomberg reporter Max Abelson about banking crises. “The recipe for stability is to have well-capitalized, risk-averse banks,” says Singer. “But banks won’t naturally gravitate toward such behavior. They need thorough and steady regulation that doesn’t ease up when the economy is humming.”
Prof. Aleksander Mądry’s testimony before a House subcommittee was highlighted by Politico fellow Mohar Chatterjee in a recent newsletter exploring how large tech companies are dominating how generative AI technologies are developed and utilized. During his testimony, Mądry emphasized that “very few players will be able to compete, given the highly specialized skills and enormous capital investments the building of such systems requires.”