The 2024-25 Arnold C. Harberger Distinguished Lecture on Economic Development: "Technology and Global Inequality in the Age of AI"
Simon Johnson, Winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences & Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship and of Global Economics and Management, MIT
Wednesday, April 2, 20255:00 PM
UCLA Royce Hall, Room 314
10745 Dickson Ct.
Los Angeles, CA 90095
ABOUT THE EVENT
According to leaders of the tech sector, the arrival of Artificial Intelligence will “change everything” – about productivity growth, jobs, and shared prosperity. In their recent book, Power and Progress: Our Thousand Year Struggle Over Power and Prosperity, Simon Johnson and Daron Acemoglu take the long view – putting the latest (and likely future) AI developments into historical context. AI could help boost the wages and living standards of everyone, but there is a very real danger that it will primarily bring a lot more automation and further widening of income inequality both within industrial economies and across countries.
In this lecture, Simon Johnson will discuss the intellectual and policy debates swirling around AI both in the US and around the world. Can we really create “Pro-Worker AI”? What would that take?
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Simon Johnson is the Ronald A. Kurtz (1954) Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he is head of the Global Economics and Management group. At MIT, he is also co-director of the Shaping the Future of Work Initiative and a Research Affiliate at Blueprint Labs.
In December 2024, Johnson received the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel, joint with Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, “for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity.”
In 2007-08, Johnson was chief economist and director of the Research Department at the International Monetary Fund. He currently co-chairs the CFA Institute Systemic Risk Council with Erkki Liikanen.
Johnson’s most recent book, with Daron Acemoglu, Power and Progress: Our 1000-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity, explores the history and economics of major technological transformations up to and including the latest developments in Artificial Intelligence.
ABOUT THE MODERATOR
Kal Raustiala holds the Promise Institute Chair in Comparative and International Law at UCLA Law School and is a Professor at the UCLA International Institute, where he teaches in the Program on Global Studies. Since 2007 he has served as Director of the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations. From 2012-2015 he was UCLA's Vice Provost for International Studies and Faculty Director of the International Education Office. Professor Raustiala's research focuses on international law, international relations, and intellectual property.
ABOUT THE ARNOLD C. HARBERGER DISTINGUISHED LECTURE SERIES
Established in 1997, the Arnold C. Harberger Distinguished Lecture on Economic Development celebrates Arnold Harberger as an eminent scholar and teacher. The lectures provide a special forum for outstanding students of international economics and policy to present their views and research to the UCLA community and the public.
To learn more and support this lecture series, visit:
https://www.international.ucla.edu/burkle/series/136026
Sponsor(s): Burkle Center for International Relations