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Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with Bloomberg reporters John Lee and Katia Dmitrieva about the social and economic impacts of AI. “We don’t know where the future lies,” says Acemoglu. “There are many directions, the technology is malleable, we can make different choices.”
Glenn Loury PhD '67 is a guest on the Boston Globe podcast “Say More” with Shirley Leung, discussing his memoir “Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative.” Now a Brown economics professor, Loury had an unusual and difficult life for an academic, saying he wrote the memoir because “I owed it to myself to tell the real story, and to rely on the generosity of the reader to see past the darkest and ugliest to the hopefully decent and honest human being grappling with his life.”
Prof. Daron Acemoglu is a guest on the Financial Times podcast, “The Economics Show with Soumaya Keynes," detailing his research on the economics of AI and implications for workers. He says AI could help the current workforce communicate better and control its own data, while opening up possibilities for the geographically or economically disadvantaged, if the right policies are put in place. “I think having this conversation, and really making it a central part of the public debate that there is a technically feasible and socially beneficial different direction of technology, would have a transformative effect on the tech sector,” he explains.
Writing for Forbes, Andrew Binns highlights research from Prof. Daron Acemoglu suggesting total productivity gains of AI could be as little as 0.53% over 10 years, much lower than common estimates.
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.