MIT economist David Autor joined Hamilton students and professors in Wellin Hall this past Thursday. Autor is widely regarded as one of the leading economists on labor market economics. His research focuses mostly on inequality, technological change and the labor force.
He received his Ph.D. in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and continued on to be a Professor at MIT, teaching courses such as “Microeconomic Theory and Public Policy” and “Putting Social Science to the Text: Experiments in Economics.” He is currently Co-Director of the MIT School Effectiveness and Inequality Initiative and Associate Director of the NBER Disability Research Center.
Autor began his speech by explaining the history of various stages of the industrial revolution. Autor described that labor was more specialized toward the beginning of the industrial revolution, and then entered an era of assembly line production. He then went on to talk about our current era of rapid technological advances, specifically how a number of of less skilled work has been replaced by machines. Increase in technology disproportionately targets lower income workers and widens economic gaps; however, Autor introduced the idea that technology will not always necessarily eliminate jobs taken up by lower-wage workers. Through explaining these various stages of the labor market, Autor foregrounded his argument that Artficial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to improve skill sets overall and increase general productivity.
Autor unpacked how the development of AI will impact the workforce, and how it can actually lessen gaps of inequality. Autor explains that AI can serve as a vehicle for growing one’s expertise. AI’s ability to master so much information and so many fields can help less-skilled workers perform higher level tasks, allowing for AI to perform more menial tasks which would typically be delegated to less-skilled workers. Our economy has been growing at a rapid rate and the labor market is constantly creating new tasks and new work. AI can generally widen and make the types of jobs people have more complicated and stimulating.
AI will free up workers’ mental capacity, allowing them to spend more time pursuing more complex work and less time on more menial tasks. Rather than replacing human intelligence, Autor argues that AI will support human innovation. Autor stipulates that AI will become a tool that workers can use to increase their productivity. It will become more important that workers know how to use AI well. Rather than being scared of AI, industries should embrace AI and train their employees in how to use the technology to their benefit.
Hours prior, Autor gave a lesser attended speech to an audience of students interested in Economics. This talk took place in KJ 101, with a much more intimate audience, so it was more of a conversation than lecture. Autor unpacked racial bias in algorithms which are used to manage health care issues.
Autor explained that there are algorithms calculating the risk of certain health issues. The results of these algorithms determine which candidates qualify for certain healthcare programs, providing diligent care to patients.
Autor presented a slideshow displaying statistics which demonstrate that Black people receive less medical care, even though they have higher rates of chronic illnesses. Autor also included data saying that Black and White people have almost equal medical expenditures, even though there are higher chronic illness rates among Black people.
Autor explained that the main fault of this algorithm was that it used cost prediction as a larger factor in calculating risk than actual health conditions. As a result, this algorithm has contributed to White people receiving more healthcare.
Autor noted that algorithms do not deliberately incorporate race as a factor in calculating risk scores for certain diseases, but account for a lot of the discrimination in healthcare. With the alteration in the algorithm to make pre-existing health conditions a greater factor in calculation, there was an 84 percent reduction in bias. This is because it is more accurate to use health conditions as the central factor in calculating risk score, and does not stem from racial bias but is an objective metric.
In his talk, David Autor redefined AI as something that will propel rather than undermine human innovation. Grounding his argument in economic logic and the precedent of history, Autor lends his optimistic view legitimacy. Autor’s perspective on AI paints a hopeful picture for the future of the global economy and economic inequality as we enter a new age of innovation. In the end, David Autor brought expertise, enthusiam and even a little comedy to Hamilton College in his talk on AI.
