Benjamin Friedman: prediction

Transcript context

…Last question — what will you do next? Well, my next project, I think, is going to be one on which I recently read one of your papers. I recently read an interesting paper of yours in the National Bureau of Economic Research conference volume on artificial intelligence. Thought you had a lot of interesting things to say about AI and distribution and how AI changes the constraints on our society. I have persuaded myself that the greatest economic challenge… or to put it the other way, the greatest societal challenge we will be facing over the next generation that stems from the economic sphere is going to come from our increasing reliance on robots and AI. I’m not pretending to reinvent myself as a labor economist any more than in this new book, I’ve reinvented myself as a theologian. I didn’t. Or in the previous one, I didn’t reinvent myself as a social historian. I’m going to learn a lot about things like that. But I think I would like to see if I can say something about how we can handle the challenges to our society, to our politics, to our way of moral thinking that I think are going to come from automation and AI. It’s a tough challenge. I’ve started, but I haven’t made much progress. The new book, again, listeners, is Benjamin Friedman, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. Do also buy Ben’s older books. Ben, thank you very much for coming with us today.…

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