AI Economics: How Technology Transforms Jobs, Markets, Life, & Our Future

As featured in Fortune.

The word "weird" once meant "fate." In the AI economy, it might again.

That idea—the Weirdness Wage Premium—is just the start of AI Economics. The bigger story is how AI reshapes work, society, prices, privacy, and power—and why the future will be driven less by what AI can do than by the incentives around it. In other words: the real crystal ball is economics, not hype.

In AI Economics, economist Benjamin Shiller draws on decades of research to explain what comes next—through vivid, often surreal real-world stories, including:

• Jobs: What academic research informs us about which roles are most exposed—and what kangaroos can teach you about job security.
• Markets & incentives: The Green Mountain Mystery—why officials once spray-painted an entire mountainside green, and why new technology finally made them stop.
• Privacy: Why secondhand data may be more dangerous than secondhand smoke.
• Pricing: How "psychic" AI helps sellers empty your wallet.
• Safety & deception: What happens when bad actors get better tools, and why it's all about the economics.

Click “Read sample” for the stories, frameworks, and practical takeaways.

A NOTE ON HOW THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN
To write about the AI disruption without using AI would be like writing a history of the printing press by hand. The author used large language models to assist in drafting and synthesis—but the economic theories and choices of stories and arguments are his own, the manuscript was polished by a professional human editor, and the cover was designed by a human artist. The result is not just an analysis of the future, but a proof-of-concept for it.

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.