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Prof. Jonathan Gruber speaks with Marketplace host Daniel Ackerman about the difficulties associated with Boston’s rental market, where due to the large number of college students many housing units start their lease cycles on September 1. “You can’t fit them all in the apartment at the same time,” explains Gruber. “You can’t all get moving trucks to move in that same day.”
Prof. Nathaniel Hendren speaks with Wall Street Journal reporter Rachel Wolfe about the evolution of economic mobility in the United States. “It’s still a coin flip whether or not you’ll earn more than your parents, but mobility probably hit a record low in the early 2020s,” says Hendren.
Prof. William Deringer speaks with David Westin on Bloomberg’s Wall Street Week about the power of early spreadsheet programs in the 1980s financial services world. When asked to compare today’s AI in the context of workplace automation fears, he says “one thing we know from the history of technology - and certainly the history of calculation tools that I like to study – is that the automation of some of these calculations…doesn’t necessarily lead to less work.”
The New Yorker shares “The Books of Losing You,” a short story written by Prof. Junot Diaz in their Flash Fiction category.
Research Scientist Eric Rosengren joins CNBC’s Squawk Box to discuss recession fears and Fed rate cuts, pointing out the largely healthy economy likely means no cuts in the short term. “We're just not seeing much in the way of underlying economic data that would indicate that financial markets are actually signaling a problem,” Rosengren says. “There’s no obvious financial instability issue here and the economy continues to be doing reasonably well.”
Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with NPR Planet Money hosts Greg Rosalsky and Darian Woods about the anticipated economic impacts of generative AI. Acemoglu notes he believes AI is overrated because humans are underrated. "A lot of people in the industry don't recognize how versatile, talented, multifaceted human skills and capabilities are," Acemoglu says. "And once you do that, you tend to overrate machines ahead of humans and underrate the humans."
Writing for Fortune, Prof. Daron Acemoglu explores the estimated scale of AI’s impact on the labor market and productivity. “The problem with the AI bubble isn’t that it is bursting and bringing the market down,” writes Acemoglu. “It’s that the hype will likely go on for a while and do much more damage in the process than experts are anticipating."
Prof. Jonathan Gruber joins GBH’s All Things Considered to discuss stock market jitters, AI hype and interest rates, urging calm and a long-term view. “No one who’s in the market should be overreacting to one day’s movement,” Gruber says. “These short-run reactions are really overreactions to individual bits of news.”
Prof. Simon Johnson and Prof. David Autor speak with New York Times reporter Emma Goldberg about the anticipated impact of AI on the job market. “We should be concerned about eliminating them,” says Prof. Simon Johnson, of the risks posed by automating jobs. “This is the hollowing out of the middle class.”
In an essay for Project Syndicate, Prof. Simon Johnson underscores for the need for countries around the world to “make strategic investments in key technologies, to create more good jobs, and to stay ahead of increasingly aggressive geopolitical competitors.” Johnson emphasizes: “If you want more good jobs, invest in science, facilitate the commercialization of the technology that results from it, and make it easy for people to build companies where the product was invented.”
PBS Space Time host Matt O’Dowd highlights research by Prof. David Kaiser and graduate student Elba Alonso-Monsalve delving into the composition of primordial black holes and potentially confirming the existence of color-charged black holes. “It may stand to reason, that colorful black holes were once the most natural thing in the world,” O’Dowd muses.
Prof. Sherry Turkle shares the benefits of being polite when interacting with AI technologies, reports Webb Wright for Scientific American, underscoring the risks of becoming habituated to using crass, disrespectful and dictatorial language. “We have to protect ourselves,” says Turkle. “Because we’re the only ones that have to form relationships with real people.”
Writing for The New York Times, Prof. Daron Acemoglu and University of Chicago Prof. James A. Robinson propose solutions to address growing distrust in democracy. “We need a new democratic social contract that people can believe in,” they write. “Democracy does not need to follow a majoritarian opinion on every topic, but it cannot sideline the views of the majority of the population, even on divisive subjects such as immigration.”
Prof. Jonathan Gruber speaks with WGBH’s Craig LeMoult about the bidding process around seven Massachusetts hospitals being sold by Steward Health Care. “I hope that someone innovative can figure out a way to take these existing assets…and turn them into an effective competitor to the [Mass General Brigham] network because we need more competition in health care in Massachusetts,” says Gruber.
Prof. Junot Díaz’s book, “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” has been named one of the 100 best books of the 21st century in The New York Times Book Review. The Pulitzer Prize-winning debut appears at number 11. “Díaz’s first novel landed like a meteorite in 2007, dazzling critics and prize juries with its mix of Dominican history, coming-of-age tale, comic-book tropes, Tolkien geekery and Spanglish slang…but the real draw is the author’s voice: brainy yet inviting, mordantly funny, sui generis.”