“Concise, chatty, companionable, ever-so-savvy. There may be a more useful guide to AI out there, but why incur the opportunity cost of searching for it? The first three pages should sell you on this one. I decline most blurb requests but, having covered AI from the jump, this is as good as it gets.”
—Paul Solman
(very) longtime Business & Economics Correspondent, PBS News Hour
“This book represents the best in bringing real research to understand what is happening in our current AI-moment... An easy and informative read.”
—Joshua Gans
University of Toronto, author of Power and Prediction and The Microeconomics of Artificial Intelligence
“AI Economics: How Technology Transforms Jobs, Markets, Life, & Our Future brings a lively economic perspective to analyzing how AI will transform our lives. The book is informative and fun to read.”
—Joel Waldfogel
University of Minnesota, author of Scroogenomics and Digital Renaissance
In AI Economics, an eminent economist draws on decades of research to reveal how these forces are reshaping our world, and offers a practical map for what comes next.
Through vivid, often surreal stories, you will discover:
- The "Weirdness Wage Premium": Why the strangest jobs may soon command the highest pay.
- The Kangaroo Lesson: What marsupials can teach us about modern job security.
- Secondhand Privacy: Why someone else’s data might be more dangerous to you than secondhand smoke.
- The Green Mountain Mystery: Why Chinese officials once spray-painted an entire mountainside green, and why new technology finally made them stop.
Clear, fast, and deeply readable,
AI Economics makes the future make sense.
A NOTE ON HOW THIS BOOK WAS WRITTENTo write a book about the AI disruption
without using AI would be like writing a history of the printing press by hand-scribing it. Therefore, the author intentionally utilized Large Language Models to assist in the drafting and synthesis of this work.
However, efficiency does not replace quality or humanity.
- The Engine: AI generated drafts.
- The Driver: The economic theories are the author's own.
- The Quality Control: The manuscript was polished and challenged by a professional human editor.
- The Art: The cover was designed by a human artist.
The result is a book that is not just an analysis of the future, but a proof-of-concept for it.
Table of contents
1. Is the Future Written in Code or Cash?
Why Incentives Are Your Real Crystal Ball
2. Job Extinction Event
My Grandmother Was a Computer (Are You Next?)
3. How Can You Avoid the Job Apocalypse?
The Kangaroo Defense
4. The Education Rip-Off
Will AI Finally Pop the Tuition Bubble?
5. Total Inequality
Is the Future Utopia for the Rich, Dystopia for the Rest?
6. Is AI Going to Kill Us All (Eventually)?
Disturbingly Sound Logic
7. Data Nudity
Who Wins When You Bare All Your Secrets?
8. Involuntary Exposure
Is Covering Up Even an Option Anymore?
9. Psychic Pricing
Is AI Reading Your Mind to Empty Your Wallet?
10. Digital Serfdom
Is “Buying” Actually a Secret Rental?
11. The Savvy Consumer Delusion
Can You Beat the System?
12. Confuse & Conquer?
How Sellers Hacked the Low-Price Economy
13. The New Economics of Deception
What Happens When Bad Guys Get Good AI?
14. Should E-Books Be Free?
The Case for Free Books
15. The "Stupid" Genius?
AI’s Brilliantly Dumb Origin Story
16. Three Rules for Surviving the AI Age
Benjamin Shiller is an Associate Professor of Economics at Brandeis University, a CESifo research affiliate, and a leading expert on the economics of technological change. His research- spanning self-driving vehicles, personalized pricing, data privacy, and digital distribution-has been featured in The Economist, The Washington Post, Forbes, The Atlantic, and other major outlets, and has informed White House Policy Reports. He holds a Ph.D. from The Wharton School and has previously held positions at Harvard Business School and the National Bureau of Economic Research's Economics of Digitization Program.
