Atkinson Memorial Lecture 2024 - Daron Acemoglu (MIT Economics)
Where: Lecture Theatre, Manor Road Building, Oxford (and online)
When: Thursday 16 May 2024, 3.30-5pm
The Atkinson Memorial Lecture is an annual distinguished lecture series established in 2018 in memory of Professor Sir Tony Atkinson, jointly by the Global Priorities Institute (GPI) and the Department of Economics at Oxford University. The aim is to encourage research among academic economists on topics related to global prioritisation - using evidence and reason to figure out the most effective ways to improve the world. This year we are delighted to have Daron Acemoglu deliver the Atkinson Memorial Lecture. The Atkinson Memorial lecture is organised in conjunction with the Parfit Memorial Lecture.
You can register to attend the event here.
Title: Reclaiming humanity in the age of AI
Abstract:
This talk will argue that human agency – the ability of humans to make decisions that shape their lives in environments – is a fundamental value and is under two related threats: (1) the growing emphasis on a single dimension of human talents centered on analytical skills and college-level education; (2) the perspective and practice of digital technologies and AI sidelining humans. The philosophical foundations of these two threats are mutually self-reinforcing. They have together led to a pattern of growing economic gaps, status differences and political voice between college and non-college workers in the industrialized world. The next stage of AI looks set to exacerbate these trends by prioritizing AGI, excessive automation and limiting autonomous human decision-making. I will also outline how a different trajectory for technological change in AI can re-energize human agency.
About the speaker
Daron Acemoglu is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, American Philosophical Society, the British Academy of Sciences, the Turkish Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Econometric Society, the European Economic Association, and the Society of Labor Economists. In 2005 he received the John Bates Clark Medal awarded to economists under forty judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge. In 2019 he was named Institute Professor, MIT’s highest faculty honor. In 2024, Acemoglu was awarded the Sanjaya Lall Professorship at the University of Oxford. More information can be found here.
Selected publications
- Advanced Technology Adoption: Selection or Causal Effects? (2023) American Economic Association: Papers and Proceedings, 113, pp. 210-214 (with Gary Anderson, David Beede, Catherine Buffington, Eric Childress, Emin Dinlersoz, Lucia Foster, Nathan Goldschlag, John Haltiwanger, Zachary Kroff, Pascual Restrepo and Nikolas Zolas)
- Distorted Innovation: Does the Market Get the Direction of Technology Right? (2023) American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, 113, pp. 1-28
- Weak, Despotic or Inclusive? How State Type Emerges from State versus Civil Society Competition (2023) American Political Science Review, 117(2), pp. 407–420 (with James A. Robinson)
Full list available here.