David Autor seems improbably optimistic about artificial intelligence. The MIT labor economist is best known for his in-depth studies showing how technology and trade have eroded the incomes of millions of American workers over the years.
But Mr Autor now argues that the new wave of technology – genetic artificial intelligence, which can produce hyper-realistic images and videos and convincingly mimic human voices and writing – could reverse this trend.
“Artificial intelligence, if used correctly, can help restore the middle-skilled, middle-class heart of the US labor market that has been destroyed by automation and globalization,” Mr. Autor wrote in an article published by Noema Magazine in February.
Mr. Autor’s stance on artificial intelligence seems like a surprising turnaround for a longtime expert on the victims of technology’s workforce. But he said the facts had changed and so had his thinking.
Modern artificial intelligence, Mr. Autor said, is a radically different technology, opening the door to new possibilities. It can, he continued, change the economics of high-stakes decision-making so that more people can take on some of the work that is now the province of elite and precise experts like doctors, lawyers, software engineers and college professors. And if more people, including those without college degrees, can do more valuable work, they should be paid more, lifting more workers into the middle class.
The researcher, whom the Economist once called “the academic voice of the American worker,” began his career as a software developer and leader of a computer education nonprofit before turning to economics — and spending decades examining the impact of technology and of globalization in workers and wages.
Mr. Autor, 59, was the author of a landmark 2003 study that concluded that 60 percent of the shift in demand favoring college-educated workers over the previous three decades was due to computerization. Subsequent research has examined the role of technology in polarizing wages and skewing employment growth toward low-wage jobs.
Other economists see Mr. Autor’s latest treatise as a stimulating, if speculative, thought exercise.
“I’m a big fan of David Autor’s work, but his case is only one possible scenario,” said Laura Tyson, a professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, who chaired the Finance Council. Clinton administration advisers. “There is broad agreement that AI will produce a productivity benefit, but how this translates into wages and employment is very uncertain.”
This uncertainty usually turns towards pessimism. Not only Silicon Valley doomsayers, but mainstream economists are predicting that many jobs, from call center workers to software developers, are at risk. In a report last year, Goldman Sachs concluded that genetic AI could automate activities equivalent to 300 million full-time jobs worldwide.
In Mr. Autor’s latest report, also published in the National Bureau of Economic Research, he rejects the possibility that artificial intelligence can completely replace human judgment. And he sees demand for health care, software, education and legal advice almost limitless, so that cost reductions will expand those sectors as their products and services become more widely available.
It’s “not a prediction but an argument” for an alternative path forward, very different from the jobs reveal predicted by Elon Musk, among others, he said.
Until now, Mr. Autor said, computers were programmed to follow rules. Incessantly they got better, faster and cheaper. And routine tasks, in an office or a factory, could be reduced to a series of step-by-step rules that have become increasingly automated. These jobs were typically held by middle-skilled workers without four-year college degrees.
Artificial intelligence, by contrast, is trained on massive amounts of data — almost all the text, images and software code on the internet. When prompted, powerful AI chatbots such as Open AI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini can generate reports and computer programs or answer questions.
“He doesn’t know the rules,” Mr. Autor said. “He learns by absorbing lots and lots of examples. It’s completely different from what we had on computers.”
An AI assistant, he said, equipped with a storehouse of learned examples can provide “guidance” (in health care, have you considered that diagnosis?) and “guardrails” (don’t prescribe those two drugs together).
In this way, Mr. Autor said, AI becomes not a job killer, but a “supplementary worker technology” that enables someone without as much expertise to do more valuable work.
Early studies of genetic AI in the workplace show the potential. A research project by two MIT graduate students advised by Mr. Autor assigned tasks such as writing short reports or news releases to office professionals. AI has increased the productivity of all workers, but the less skilled and experienced have benefited the most. Later research with call center workers and computer programmers found a similar pattern.
But even if AI delivers the biggest productivity gains to less experienced workers, that doesn’t mean they’ll reap the benefits of higher pay and better careers. This will also depend on corporate behavior, employee bargaining power and policy incentives.
Daron Acemoglu, an MIT economist and occasional collaborator of Mr. Autor, said his colleague’s vision is a possible way forward, but not necessarily the most likely. History, Mr. Acemoglou said, is not with the optimists of lifting all boats.
“We’ve been here before with other digital technologies, and it hasn’t happened,” he said.
Mr. Autor acknowledges the challenges. “But I think there’s value in imagining a positive outcome, encouraging discussion and preparing for a better future,” he said. “This technology is a tool, and how we decide to use it is up to us.”
