Description:
Apocalyptic predictions that AI will eliminate millions of jobs have caused widespread fear. Three renowned economists argue that this assumption is wrong. Messy Jobs is an optimistic guide to work and human value in the age of AI.
Brief description: Luis Garicano is a professor of public policy at the London School of Economics. His research focuses on how information technology and AI affect organizations, expertise, productivity, and economic growth, and on how firms and institutions adapt to change.
Review Quotes:
Messy Jobs is a brilliant application of price theory. AI changes what is scarce in the economy and therefore what is valuable. When intelligence becomes cheap, judgment, coordination, trust, and responsibility become more valuable. The authors use this simple, powerful logic to illuminate how AI will reshape work and organizations." Bengt Holmström, Paul A. Samuelson Professor of Economics at MIT and recipient of the 2016 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
In Messy Jobs, Garicano, Li, and Wu bring the discipline of organizational economics to a question too often left to speculation: How will AI actually reshape work? They move past the usual debates about what AI can or cannot do and ask the harder questions. What shapes the incentives to adopt it? How does adoption reshape the incentives to learn? What new configuration of skills will emerge as AI advances? A rigorous, original, and engaging account of how AI will reshape organizations and labor markets, and what it will take to thrive in them. - Raffaella Sadun, Charles Edward Wilson Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
This is the first book in the AI era that recognizes that most of what organizations struggle with does not involve computational problems. People in messy jobs must hold coalitions together, adjudicate between competing interests, and make change stick. These are political, diplomatic, and interpersonal challenges. As a result, these types of messy jobs will persist well into our AI future. Garicano, Li, and Wu, are neither techno-utopian nor techno-dystopian. They take seriously what machines can do, what humans will do, and how jobs will be rebundled. The economics analysis is lucid and penetrating, and the book pinpoints where human agency will remain paramount. The book is hopeful and practical for anyone charting a career in the coming decade. - David Autor, Daniel (1972) and Gail Rubinfeld Professor, Google Technology and Society Visiting Fellow, Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow, MIT Department of Economics
This is simply a must-read book if you are interested in the future of work in the age of AI. For decades, Luis Garicano has been a leading voice in how organizations morph and change with new technology and innovation. Together with Jin Li and Yanhui Wu, they have written the definitive text on how AI will affect the labor market. The book is an impressive feat of combining academic rigor with clear explanations and concrete examples. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about what comes next. - Alex Imas, director of AGI Economics, Google DeepMind, and the Roger L. and Rachel M. Goetz Professor of Behavioral Science, Economics, and Applied AI, and Vasilou Faculty Scholar at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business
There is a lot of woolly thinking on the topic of AI and jobs. This excellent book contains by far the most thoughtful and economically literate account that has yet been written. - Patrick Collison, CEO, Stripe
AI is not going to lead to mass unemployment, and this is the best book to explain why not. It also illuminates how labor markets are likely to evolve. It is short, to the point, eminently readable, and of extreme relevance. - Tyler Cowen, professor of economics at George Mason University
This book isn't just some economist's armchair theorizing; it's a practical guide. I hope you get as much out of it as I did. -- Evan Guo, CEO of Zhaopin Group, the largest career development platform in China