AI and the Luddites

Incentives matter, sure. But what should you do when following the incentives means quietly participating in something wrong? Psychologist Adam Mastroianni argues that obeying bad incentives–shading a headline for clicks, keeping the found wallet because no one’s watching–is “loser behavior,” a surrender of the hardest and most human task: figuring out right from wrong for… MORE

Daron Acemoglu won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2024 and is the third most cited economist of all time. Thus, the paradox of his new book, What Happened to Liberal Democracy?, is that its most serious analytic failures are economic. He provides a sincere and serious consideration of modern liberalism’s estrangement from the working… MORE

What does a failed 19th-century Chinese civil exam and one of the deadliest wars in history have to do with how we hire, educate, and test people today? In this EconTalk conversation, Russ Roberts and education expert Daisy Christodoulou trace a surprising thread from the Taiping Rebellion through Britain’s Northcote-Trevelyan reforms, Samuel Pepys’s naval exams, and… MORE

“Just because somebody packs up that moving van in Chicago, Illinois, they don’t lose their skills on the way to the state of Arizona. Why should somebody have to suffer the burden of thousands of dollars or weeks or months of recertification in a skill that they already have?” So said Doug Ducey, the Republican… MORE

[For an update, see Occupational Licensing, by Edward J. Timmons] Most Americans know that practicing medicine without a license is against the law. They also know that lawyers and dentists must have the state’s approval before they can ply their trades. Few Americans, however, would guess that in some states falconers, ferret breeders, and palm… MORE

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is upending professions as diverse as art, cinema, accounting, national defense, and education. Some even argue that AI will render almost all work obsolete. They say its ability to “think” and accomplish tasks previously solely in the realm of human ability will mean that humans will not need to work; the… MORE

The twentieth century witnessed the unparalleled expansion of government power over the lives and livelihoods of individuals. Much of this was the result of two devastating world wars and totalitarian ideologies that directly challenged individual liberty and the free institutions of the open society. Other forms of expansion in the provision of social welfare and… MORE

A five-part short video series on the life and contemporary relevance of Adam Smith. This video series, produced by AdamSmithWorks, can be watch as a full 38-minute feature, or in five thematic, classroom-friendly chunks. To access all, click here.   Below are some discussion prompts related to this video:   Part 1: The Invisible Hand… MORE

Recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, Milton Friedman (1912-2006) has long been recognized as one of our most important economic thinkers and a leader of the Chicago school of economics. He is the author of many books and articles in economics, including A Theory of the Consumption Function and A Monetary History… MORE

  Milton Friedman was the twentieth century’s most prominent advocate of free markets. Born in 1912 to Jewish immigrants in New York City, he attended Rutgers University, where he earned his B.A. at the age of twenty. He went on to earn his M.A. from the University of Chicago in 1933 and his Ph.D. from… MORE

Abba Lerner was the milton friedman of the left. Like Friedman, Lerner was a brilliant expositor of economics who was able to make complex concepts crystal clear. Lerner was also an unusual kind of socialist: he hated government power over people’s lives. Like Friedman, he praised private enterprise on the ground that “alternatives to government… MORE

  In 2009, Elinor Ostrom, along with oliver e. williamson, was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics. Ostrom, the only woman to ever win the prize, received it “for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons.” She demonstrated “how local property can be successfully managed by local commons without any regulation by central authorities… MORE