Carl Snyder Memorial Lecture

Date and Time

April 29, 2025 - 3:00pm

Location

Betty Elings West Pavillion at The Club & Guest House

Speaker

Dr. David Autor, Daniel (1972) and Gail Rubinfeld Professor of Economics at MIT Department of Economics

Hosted by

The Economics Department

Title

"Expertise, Artificial Intelligence, and The Work of the Future"

Abstract

Will recent advances in AI complement human expertise, thereby increasing its value, or render it increasingly unnecessary, thus reducing its value (even if jobs are not in net eliminated)? This talk will frame this question through the lens of three technological revolutions of the last two centuries: the Industrial Revolution, the Computer Revolution, and the AI Revolution. In each, the types of expertise rewarded changed substantially, with vastly uneven consequences for workers in different occupations and possessing different education levels. These forces will play out differently in the AI era than in preceding decades. While the future is not a forecasting exercise -- we are collectively creating it -- the speaker will touch on the opportunities that AI opens for the labor market, as well as some of the risks it poses.

Biography

David Autor is the Daniel (1972) and Gail Rubinfeld Professor in the MIT Department of Economics, codirector of the NBER Labor Studies Program and the MIT Shaping the Future of Work Initiative. His scholarship explores the labor-market impacts of technological change and globalization on job polarization, skill demands, earnings levels and inequality, and electoral outcomes.