Institute professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Acemoglu is a giant in the fields of political economy and labor economics. His research, which has been cited over 230,000 times, tackles big topics like why nations fail and the impact of advanced technologies like AI and robots on jobs. Acemoglu’s newest book, Power and Progress, co-authored by Simon Johnson, is a comprehensive history of the interplay between technology and power—and it argues that technology doesn’t always make people better off. Rather, its impact depends on the decisions we make, a crucial insight for business leaders and policymakers.
Right now, what is your biggest question or curiosity about the future of work?
The biggest question is what the work of the future will be. Broadly speaking, there are two paths to the future. The first one will involve more and more automation and elimination of good jobs, while the second one could emphasize the creation of new tasks and competencies for human workers of diverse skills. The reason why this is the biggest question is that we are at a critical point. We are at the beginning of fundamental changes in artificial intelligence technologies, and AI has the capacity to accelerate automation and sideline workers, but it also has a great promise to become a human-complementary technology—namely, a tool for creating new tasks and new competencies. For example, AI can be used to provide high-quality information for problem-solving and decision-making to a broad range of occupations, ranging from health care professionals and mid-level managers to electricians, plumbers, and blue-collar workers.
Which path we choose will have defining effects on work, wages, inequality, and indirectly on democracy and the kind of society we live in. The biggest question is also my biggest source of worry: While I see the promise of AI as a human-complementary technology, I believe the industry is doubling down on automation and other anti-worker, anti-human practices, such as data collection, surveillance, and manipulation.
What is one problem leaders should be focused on solving in the year ahead?
I believe the biggest thing that tech leaders should do is be less hubristic and recognize their social responsibility. While there are notable exceptions, by and large tech leaders have not taken on board how socially damaging the agenda of just focusing automation, surveillance, and disruption has been and will continue to be. This is what I mean by hubris in this context. I am convinced that tech companies can also flourish, and in fact do good as well as doing well, if they focus on human-complementary technologies. Yet unfortunately, this is not what they are doing at the moment.