How AI Could Help Rebuild The Middle Class (with David Autor)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 31 December 2024

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, Nick and Goldy discuss the future of AI and its potential impact on labor markets and society with MIT professor and economist David Autor. While many pundits predict that AI will bring economic misery to working Americans, Autor optimistically argues that AI could empower the middle class by augmenting human expertise, unlocking new solutions to complex problems, and enabling individuals with fewer formal skills to excel in areas requiring advanced knowledge. Professor Autor also underscores the need for targeted investments, labor market supports, and thoughtful regulations to ensure the benefits of AI are widely and equitably distributed rather than concentrated among a privileged few. It’s a fascinating discussion about the future of AI that tackles the pressing questions about its ethical deployment, the risks of monopolization, and the societal shifts required to harness it for the greater good. David Autor is a labor economist and professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies how technological change and globalization affect workers. He is also co-director of the MIT Shaping the Future of Work Initiative and the National Bureau of Economic Research Labor Studies Program. Social Media Twitter: @davidautor Further reading: NOEMA - AI Could Actually Help Rebuild The Middle Class New York Times - How One Tech Skeptic Decided A.I. Might Benefit the Middle Class Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Threads: pitchforkeconomics Bluesky: @pitchforkeconomics.bsky.social Twitter: @PitchforkEcon, @NickHanauer, @civicaction YouTube: @pitchforkeconomics LinkedIn: Pitchfork Economics Substack: The Pitch

Transcript

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0:00.0	The rising inequality and growing political instability that we see today are the direct result of decades of bad economic theory.
0:10.3	It's time to build our economy from the bottom up and from the middle out, not the top down.
0:15.8	Middle out economics is the answer. Because Wall Street didn't build this country. Great middle class built this country.
0:22.6	The more the middle class thrives, the better the economy is for everyone, even rich people
0:28.6	like me.
0:33.6	This is Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer, a podcast about how to build the economy from the middle out.
0:42.6	Welcome to the show.
0:49.8	So we're recording this about a month after the election, Nick, and obviously there's a lot of things for me to feel really anxious about. And just one more thing. I just need to ask you, are you planning to replace me with AI?
1:04.7	If I could, I would, buddy. If I could I would.
1:08.5	Spoken like a venture capitalist.
1:11.6	Yeah. I think we're a venture capitalist. Yeah.
1:12.6	I think we're a few years.
1:13.6	I think we're a few years away, though.
1:15.6	I'll tell you what, you know, I don't know that AI can ever figure out how to do what I do because I've never figured out how to do what I do.
1:23.6	So I don't know what it would learn from.
1:25.6	Yeah.
1:26.6	Yeah. But it's a great way to lead into today's
1:29.2	conversation because, you know, we're talking about the potential future of AI. Yeah, and we get to talk
1:36.6	to David Autor, who is one of the country's most highly respected economists. Labor economists.
1:45.0	Labor economists, but economists more generally.
1:48.0	He's a economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he studies technological change
1:55.0	and globalization and how it affects workers principally.
	...

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