"Concise, chatty, companionable, ever-so-savvy... The first three pages should sell you on this one... having covered AI from the jump, this is as good as it gets."
—Paul Solman, (very) longtime Business & Economics Correspondent, PBS News Hour
What can a kangaroo teach you about job security?
Through vivid, often surreal stories, AI Economics reveals how technology is reshaping our world. 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.
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. From why self-driving cars might need literal bulletproofing to why "going data nude" could actually lead to a better society, this book unpacks the urgent realities taking shape right now.
"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 Prediction Machines and The Microeconomics of Artificial Intelligence
"AI Economics... 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
A NOTE ON HOW THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN
To write a book about the AI disruption without using AI would be like writing a history of the printing press by hand-scribing it. However, efficiency does not replace quality or humanity:
- AI generated drafts.
- The economic theories are the author's own.
- The manuscript was polished and challenged by a professional human editor.
- 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
Foundations
1. Is the Future Written in Code or Cash?
Part One: The Upheaval
2. Job Extinction Event
3. How Can You Avoid the Job Apocalypse?
4. The Education Rip-Off
5. Total Inequality
6. Is AI Going to Kill Us All (Eventually)?
Part Two: The Panopticon
7. Data Nudity
8. Involuntary Exposure
9. Psychic Pricing
Part Three: The Dispossession
10. Digital Serfdom
11. The Savvy Consumer Delusion
12. Confuse & Conquer?
13. The New Economics of Deception
Part Four: The Process
14. Should Most E-Books Be Free?
15. The "Stupid" Genius?
Conclusion
16. Three Rules for Surviving the AI Age
