For as long as people have speculated about the development of artificial intelligence, they have debated its potential impacts on the labor market. Today, several years into widespread use of large language models, those questions are more urgent, but the answers are less clear. Is AI already taking jobs away? Could human beings flourish in a world in which they no longer have to perform economically valuable work?

On this episode, Massachusetts Institute of Technology labor economist David Autor joins host Sara Frueh to discuss the possible impacts of AI on the future of work, what that means on an economic and human level, and what policies may be able to shape AI in a way that works for humans.

Resources

Read the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s 2024 consensus study, “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work.”

Check out Autor’s book, The Work of the Future.

Could AI help rebuild the middle class? Autor explores in an essay for Noema Magazine.

Read Frueh’s interview with economist Anne Case mentioned in this episode.

More on this topic from Issues: “A Vision for Centering Workers in Technology Development” by Amanda Ballantyne, Jodi Forlizzi, and Crystal Weise.