Starr Forum: Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity

A thousand years of history and contemporary evidence make one thing clear: progress depends on the choices we make about technology. New ways of organizing production and communication can either serve the narrow interests of an elite or become the foundation for widespread prosperity. Today, digital technologies and artificial intelligence threaten jobs and democracy through excessive automation, massive data collection, and intrusive surveillance. Will the next decades bring shared prosperity or a further move in the direction of two-tiered societies? Join us for this important discussion with Daron Acemoglu, the co-author of Power and Progress.
A full transcript is available here: cis.mit.edu/sites/default/fil...
Speaker:
Daron Acemoglu is an Institute Professor at MIT and 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. He is also a member of the Group of Thirty. He is the author of six books, including New York Times bestseller "Why Nations Fail: Power, Prosperity, and Poverty" (joint with James A. Robinson), "Introduction to Modern Economic Growth," "The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty" (with James A. Robinson), and "Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity" (with Simon Johnson). His academic work covers a wide range of areas, including political economy, economic development, economic growth, technological change, inequality, labor economics and economics of networks.
Full bio: economics.mit.edu/people/facu...
Discussant:
Fotini Christia is the MIT Ford International Professor of the Social Sciences in the Department of Political Science and a faculty affiliate of the Center for International Studies. She is director of the Sociotechnical Systems Research Center (SSRC), associate director of the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS), and chair of the doctoral program in Social and Engineering Systems (SES) at MIT's Schwarzman College of Computing. She is the author of “Alliance Formation in Civil War” (Cambridge University Press, 2012), which was awarded the Luebbert Award for Best Book in Comparative Politics, the Lepgold Prize for Best Book in International Relations, and a Distinguished Book Award from the International Studies Association.
Full bio: polisci.mit.edu/people/fotini...
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