Erik Brynjolfsson and Michael Strain on The Costs of Labor-Replacing Technology

Hardly Working with Brent Orrell

Erik Brynjolfsson’s paper “The Turing Trap: The Promise and Peril of Human-Like Artificial Intelligence” argues that the “imitation game” of creating tech that mimics humans has increased productivity and living standards, but does not exist without costs. Those costs make up “The Turing Trap” which happens when humans not involved in creating AI cannot compete with the productivity and efficiency of the robots designed to do their jobs, and lose control of their economic and political futures.

The Turing Trap sits at the center of contemporary labor force struggles, including the Great Resignation, the fight for “good jobs” and cratering male labor force participation. Michael Strain, who directs AEI’s Economic Policy Studies, joins Dr. Brynjolfsson and I to discuss what economic policy can do to encourage more innovators aim higher and create machines that augment rather than replace human labor, and how that effort is crucial to the American Dream.

Mentioned in the episode

Erik Brynjolfsson

Utopia Paperback by Thomas More

Foundation Mass Market Paperback by Isaac Asimov

Heilbronner’s Worldly Philosophers

Doug Hofstadter

The Turing Trap by Erik Brynjolfsson

Michael R. Strain

The American Dream is Not Dead

The High School Movement

Pigouvian Tax

Consumption Tax

Tax Reform Act of 1986

Greg Mankiw Pigou Club