Brian Albrecht Quoted in The New Yorker on the Economics of A.I. Abundance
Brian Albrecht, ICLE Chief Economist, was recently quoted in The New Yorker article on the economic debate over whether artificial intelligence driven productivity gains will expand growth or displace labor and concentrate income. Read the full article here.
The article by Trammell and Patel has already received some pushback online, largely on the ground that its assumption that capital is perfectly substitutable for labor is unrealistic. Brian Albrecht, the chief economist at the Portland-based International Center for Law & Economics, argues that the process of A.I. machines replacing workers is likely to take a long time, and during that transition “standard economic principles apply.” Krier argued that the mere fact A.I. can do something more cheaply or e?ectively than human workers doesn’t mean it will inevitably replace them. “People pay a lot to go see concerts and Olympic races even if in principle a model can generate the same song and a robot can run faster,” he wrote.