Alex Imas on Why Economists Might Be Getting AI Wrong
4/18/202647 min
Everyone knows that new technologies can be really disruptive to the labor market, but eventually new jobs emerge and things come back into balance. And there is a sense in which many view AI with the same lens. Yes, there will be pain in some sectors, but then there will be productivity gains and new sources of demand and new opportunities for labor that we can't conceive of yet. But could it be different this time? Could AI be disruptive in a manner that, say, the steam engine was not? On this episode we speak with Alex Imas, a professor at the University of Chicago focusing on economics and applied AI. We talk about his work on the AI and labor question, how to think about which jobs may be most at risk, and why the sheer speed of AI development could make it categorically different than prior general purpose technologies that came before it.
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First 90 secondsJoe Weisenthal· Host0:00
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Tracy Alloway· Host0:48
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Speaker 20:57
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Joe Weisenthal· Host1:05
[upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Jill Weisenthal.
Tracy Alloway· Host1:21
And I'm Tracy Alloway.
Joe Weisenthal· Host1:22
Tracy, it may have changed a little bit in recent weeks or months, but I think by and large, by and large, like if you talk to economists