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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.
New research by graduate student Aidan Toner-Rodgers looks at “what happened to the productivity of over a thousand scientists at an R&D lab of a large company after they got access to AI,” reports Greg Rosalsky for NPR’s Planet Money. “Toner-Rodgers found that ‘while the bottom third of scientists see little benefit, the output of top researchers nearly doubles,’” Rosalsky explains.
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.
Boston Globe reporter Malcom Gay spotlights the new Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building, a “new hub for music instruction and performance” for MIT’s 30 on-campus ensembles and more than 1,500 students enrolled in music classes each academic year. Gay notes that: “The more than 35,000-square-foot structure offers a variety of classroom, performance, rehearsal, and studio spaces.” He adds that there will be “more than 25 concerts at Tull Concert Hall that are open to the public this spring.”
In an interview with Boston Public Radio, Prof. Jon Gruber explains the expected impact of incoming tariff proposals, reports Hannah Loss for GBH. “There is a growing consensus that economic nationalism is something worth taking seriously, in particular for sectors where we are very vulnerable to supply chains and where we have concerns that other countries might not trade fairly,” says Gruber.
Forbes reporter John M. Bremen spotlights a new study by MIT researchers that “shows the most skilled scientists and innovations benefitted the most from AI – doubling their productivity – while lower-skilled staff did not experience similar gains.” The study “showed that specialized AI tools foster radical innovation at the technical level within a domain-specific scope, but also risk narrowing human roles and diversity of thought,” writes Bremen.
Prof. Alan Lightman speaks with Boston Globe correspondent Kate Tuttle about his new book, “The Miraculous from the Material: Understanding the Wonders of Nature,” in which Lightman “celebrates the phenomena that inspire awe.” Lightman explains: “I think the humanities are even more important now in a period of exponentially advancing technology. We really have to think hard about what makes us human. Like having compassion for other people. The ability to fall in love, the ability to appreciate beauty.”
Prof. Vipin Narang speaks with New York Times reporter David E. Sanger about the “use of nuclear weapons as the ultimate bargaining chip.” Narang explains: “A nuclear threshold is not determined by words, but by the deterrence balance and stakes, and changes to declaratory doctrine do not at all change the deterrence balance between the U.S., NATO and Russia.”
Prof. Emeritus David Thorburn speaks with Washington Post reporter Laura Bradley about the rise of a new type of female detective archetype in TV crime shows. “Though the women who populate the crime dramas of today are notably contemporary, they share a key characteristic with their literary forebears — a nebulous relationship with law enforcement,” Bradley writes. “There’s a long tradition of a certain kind of detective being at odds with the cops,” says Thorburn. “It goes back to Sherlock Holmes, who always mocked the London police and kept exposing them.”