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Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with Bloomberg reporter Jeran Wittenstein about the implications of new AI advancements on areas such as productivity, the labor market and economic growth. “I hope I’m wrong, I hope we get some productivity growth. That would be really cool,” says Acemoglu. “But I don’t see it yet.”
In an article for The New York Times, Prof. Pranav Rajpurkar of Harvard and Prof. Eric J. Topol of Scripps highlight a recent study by MIT researchers that examined “how radiologists diagnose potential diseases from chest X-rays.” They write that the study’s findings “broadly indicate that right now, simply giving physicians A.I. tools and expecting automatic improvements doesn’t work. Physicians aren’t completely comfortable with A.I. and still doubt its utility, even if it could demonstrably improve patient care.”
In a letter to the editor of The Boston Globe, Lecturer Chloe Garcia Roberts spotlights the important role of books and literature in general in the greater Boston area’s culture and community. “If you throw a pebble in a crowd here, you are likely to hit a practicing, lauded, or aspiring writer,” writes Roberts. “A number of the area’s treasured bookstores survived, albeit shakily, the onslaught of the chains and Amazon. It is part of our culture here that many of us go out of our way, trudging through the wintry mix if necessary, to attend author events and buy books at these independent stores. When they go, they won’t be replaced.”
Writing for Le Monde, Prof. Arnaud Costinot and Prof. Andrés Rodríguez-Clare of UC Berkeley make the case against the U.S. implementing substantial tariffs on imports. “Retaining its dominance in high-tech sectors, regaining a foothold in new green sectors, and restoring prosperity to lagging regions, to name just a few, are critical goals for US economic policy in the years to come. A richer set of economic policies are needed, with tariffs playing at best an auxiliary role,” writes Costinot. “Pursuing a policy of raising tariffs would most likely lead to a new global trade war. Its consequences, unfortunately, are not hard to predict. It would mean less trade and, most importantly, less international cooperation on the big issues of the day: war, poverty, and climate change.”
Writing for The New York Times, Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu makes the case for “a new liberalism that is more faithful to its original values but adapted to our times.” Acemoglu emphasizes that “a renewed liberalism must rediscover its most inspiring roots: an energy coming from opposition to the unfair and unrestrained use of power; a commitment to freedom of thought and celebration of different approaches to our common problems; and a concern for the community as well as the individual as the basis of efforts to improve the opportunities of the disadvantaged.”
In a letter to the editor of The Boston Globe, Vice President for Research Ian Waitz addresses the importance of research staff at the Institute, noting that “research universities educate through research.” Waitz emphasizes: “At MIT, there has been double-digit real growth in our on-campus research enterprise over the past 11 years along with growth in our graduate student body. With that come more people, and while these staff may not be directly involved in student classroom instruction, the research they conduct is crucial to the hands-on education that MIT students receive and to the real-world solutions that originate at the school.”
Prof. Jonathan Gruber speaks with Boston Globe reporter Camilo Fonseca about the housing and rental market in Massachusetts. “The big picture here is not whether rents go up a bit less than expected,” says Gruber. “It is that rents are generally unaffordable for so many families. The solution is simple: we need to build more affordable housing.”
Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with Financial Times reporter Rana Foroohar about the impact of automation on the labor market. “It’s likely that the short- to midterm gains from AI will be distributed unequally, and will benefit capital more than labor,” says Acemoglu.
Prof. Daron Acemoglu highlights the economic and societal implications of integrating automation in the workforce, reports Taylor Nicole Rogers for The Financial Times. “Acemoglu says that robots’ current capabilities mean that those most at risk of being displaced are in blue-collar jobs and lack college degrees, which may make it difficult for them to shift into the high-tech roles likely to be created by automation,” writes Rogers.
Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with Times Higher Ed’s Jack Grove about the importance of maintaining economic and political discussions in higher ed. “It is fine for academics to speak on such issues as long as you can keep that separate from your classrooms and for what constitutes high-quality research,” says Acemoglu. “There are special times when academics should speak out.”
Prof. Daron Acemoglu highlights the importance of adopting alternative technologies in the face of AI advancements, reports Jared Newman for Fast Company. “We need investment for alternative approaches to AI, and alternative technologies, those that I would say are more centered on making workers more productive, and providing better information to workers,” says Acemoglu.
Prof. Abhijit Banerjee speaks with Financial Times reporter John Reed about global politics and the increased need for trust in economists. On his book, Poor Economics, Banerjee says, “I think we have always thought that economic ideas were too important to be left out of the public discourse. There is a sense in which we think economics does a disservice to ourselves and the world by wrapping ourselves in this omniscient jargon.”
New York Times reporter Thomas B. Edsall spotlights research by Prof. David Autor examining how socioeconomic status influences the gender gap. The researchers noted that the “explanation lies in the disproportionate share of boys ranked at or near the bottom on measures of academic performance and behavior — what statisticians call the left tail or lower tail of the distribution,” writes Edsall.
Prof. Daron Acemoglu, one of the recipients of the 2024 Nobel Prize in economics, speaks with NPR Planet Money hosts Jeff Guo and Greg Rosalsky about the academic inspirations that led to his award-winning research studying the role of institutions in shaping economies. “In 1980, as I was in middle school, just the beginning of my seventh grade, Turkey suffered a big military coup,” explains Acemoglu. “There were soldiers everywhere, including in our school. Turkey was definitely not a democratic country at the time, and it was also suffering via a series of economic problems. I got interested in exactly these sets of issues.”
Prof. David Autor has been named a Senior Fellow in the Schmidt Sciences AI2050 Fellows program, and Profs. Sara Beery, Gabriele Farina, Marzyeh Ghassemi, and Yoon Kim have been named Early Career AI2050 Fellows, reports Michael T. Nietzel for Forbes. The AI2050 fellowships provide funding and resources, while challenging “researchers to imagine the year 2050, where AI has been extremely beneficial and to conduct research that helps society realize its most beneficial impacts,” explains Nietzel.