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Showing episodes and shows of
Seth Benzell
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Justified Posteriors
The Economics of Book Slop
In this episode, Seth and Andrey break down AI and the Quantity and Quality of Creative Products: Have LLMs Boosted Creation of Valuable Books? by Imke Reimers and Joel Waldfogel, presented at the NBER Digital Economics and AI conference. Imke and Joel are a great team of digitization researchers, with particular expertise in Amazon book sales data.The paper uses Amazon data to ask whether AI has increased the number of books being published and whether those books are better or worse. A hypothesis of the article is that heavily AI-assisted books may have low average quality...
2026-03-10
1h 07
Justified Posteriors
Noah Smith on Blogging, AI Economics, and Elite Overproduction
We sit down with prominent blogger and economist Noah Smith to dig into the disconnect between AI hype and current macroeconomic reality. The central puzzle: if a “god machine” driving 20% annual GDP growth is truly imminent, why aren’t real interest rates skyrocketing as people borrow against a much wealthier future? Noah’s take is that markets are pricing in significant growth, but not civilizational rapture. The culprits keeping digital intelligence from exploding into physical productivity? Land use, energy constraints, and the usual Baumol suspects.But Noah’s through-line is more hopeful than skeptical: even modest AI is humanit...
2026-02-24
1h 30
Justified Posteriors
Basil Halperin: Leading Indicators for TAI, Conditions for the Singularity, and Tax Policy at the End of History
In this week’s episode of Justified Posteriors, we interview TAI expert and friend of the show Basil Halperin of the University of Virginia. There Basil is doing some of the most fascinating work on the economics of TAI with Anton Korinek and other leading researchers. The first section of our conversation covers Basil’s early career, including jobs at Uber and AQI, how he got interested in AI as a research topic, and his role in managing the Stripe Economics of AI Fellowship.We then discuss a paper we’ve already covered on the show...
2026-02-09
1h 29
Justified Posteriors
Can an AI Interview You Better Than a Human?
We discuss “Voice in AI Firms: A Natural Field Experiment on Automated Job Interviews” by Brian Jabarian and Luca Henkel. The paper examines a randomized experiment with call center job applicants in the Philippines who were assigned to either AI-conducted voice interviews, human interviews, or given a choice between the two.Key Findings:* AI interviews led to higher job offer rates and proportionally higher retention rates* No significant difference in involuntary terminations between groups* Applicants actually preferred AI interviews—likely due to scheduling flexibility and immediate availability* AI interviewers kept c...
2026-01-26
1h 00
Justified Posteriors
Anecdotes from AI Supercharged Science
Anecdotes of AI Supercharged Science: Justified Posteriors reads “Early Science Acceleration Experiments with GPT-5”In this episode, Seth and Andrey break down OpenAI’s report, Early Science Acceleration Experiments with GPT-5. The paper is organized as a series of anecdotes about how top scientists used an early version of GPT-5 in their scientific investigations. The coauthors of the papers try out the model to help them with everything from Erdős’ unsolved math problems to understanding black hole symmetries to interpreting the results of a biological experiment. Seth and Andrey’s priors revolve around whether current models are closer...
2026-01-13
1h 07
Justified Posteriors
Ben Golub: AI Referees, Social Learning, and Virtual Currencies
In this episode, we sit down with Ben Golub, economist at Northwestern University, to talk about what happens when AI meets academic research, social learning, and network theory.We start with Ben’s startup Refine, an AI-powered technical referee for academic papers. From there, the conversation ranges widely: how scholars should think about tooling, why “slop” is now cheap, how eigenvalues explain viral growth, and what large language models might do to collective belief formation. We get math, economics, startups, misinformation, and even cow tipping.Links & References* Refine — AI referee for academic papers* H...
2025-12-29
1h 16
Justified Posteriors
Are We There Yet? Evaluating METR’s Eval of AI’s Ability to Complete Tasks of Different Lengths
Seth and Andrey are back to evaluating an AI evaluation, this time discussing METR’s paper “Measuring AI Ability to Complete Long Tasks.” The paper’s central claim is that the “effective horizon” of AI agents—the length of tasks they can complete autonomously—is doubling every 7 months. Extrapolate that, and AI handles month-long projects by decade’s end. They discuss the data and the assumptions that go into this benchmark. Seth and Andrey start by walking through the tests of task length, from simple atomic actions to the 8-hour research simulations in RE-Bench. They discuss whether the paper properly...
2025-12-15
1h 06
Justified Posteriors
Epistemic Apocalypse and Prediction Markets (Bo Cowgill Pt. 2)
We continue our conversation with Columbia professor Bo Cowgill. We start with a detour through Roman Jakobson’s six functions of language (plus two bonus functions Seth insists on adding: performative and incantatory). Can LLMs handle the referential? The expressive? The poetic? What about magic?The conversation gets properly technical as we dig into Crawford-Sobel cheap talk models, the collapse of costly signaling, and whether “pay to apply” is the inevitable market response to a world where everyone can produce indistinguishable text. Bo argues we’ll see more referral hiring (your network as the last remaining credible signal...
2025-12-02
1h 02
Justified Posteriors
Does AI Cheapen Talk? (Bo Cowgill Pt. 1)
In this episode, we brought on our friend Bo Cowgill, to dissect his forthcoming Management Science paper, Does AI Cheapen Talk? The core question is one economists have been circling since Spence drew a line on the blackboard: What happens when a technology makes costly signals cheap? If GenAI allows anyone to produce polished pitches, résumés, and cover letters, what happens to screening, hiring, and the entire communication equilibrium?Bo’s answer: it depends. Under some conditions, GenAI induces an epistemic apocalypse, flattening signals and confusing recruiters. In others, it reveals skill even more sharply, givi...
2025-11-18
53 min
Economics Matters with Laurence Kotlikoff
Seth Benzell is Back to Update Us on All things AI
With the leading ten AI companies comprising one third of the value of the S&P and none showing a profit plus the threat they pose to our jobs, let alone humanity, we best keep careful track of the industry. My former graduate student, Seth Benzell, is one of our nation's top AI experts. Seth discusses AI's so-called scaling law, the problem of too little data to fit the industry's parameters mystically being cured by double descent, and the bitter lesson. Seth also talks us through how much money AI can save and, therefore, make by replacing humans in accompli...
2025-11-14
1h 03
Justified Posteriors
Evaluating GDPVal, OpenAI's Eval for Economic Value
In this episode of Justified Posteriors podcast, Seth and Andrey discuss “GDPVal” a new set of AI evaluations, really a novel approach to AI evaluation, from OpenAI. The metric is debuted in a new OpenAI paper, “GDP Val: Evaluating AI Model Performance on Real-World, Economically Valuable Tasks.” We discuss this “bottom-up” approach to the possible economic impact of AI (which evaluates hundreds of specific tasks, multiplying them by estimated economic value in the economy of each), and contrast it with Daron Acemoglu’s “top-down” “Simple Macroeconomics of AI” paper (which does the same, but only for aggregate averages), as well as with measures...
2025-11-04
1h 04
Justified Posteriors
Will Super-Intelligence's Opportunity Costs Save Human Labor?
In this episode, Seth Benzell and Andrey Fradkin read “We Won’t Be Missed: Work and Growth in the AGI World” by Pascual Restrepo (Yale) to understand what how AGI will change work in the long run. A common metaphor for the post AGI economy is to compare AGIs to humans and men to ants. Will the AGI want to keep the humans around? Some argue that they would — there’s the possibility of useful exchange with the ants, even if they are small and weak, because an AGI will, definitionally, have opportunity costs. You might view Pascual’s paper as a f...
2025-10-21
51 min
Justified Posteriors
Can political science contribute to the AI discourse?
Economists generally see AI as a production technology, or input into production. But maybe AI is actually more impactful as unlocking a new way of organizing society. Finish this story: * The printing press unlocked the Enlightenment — along with both liberal democracy and France’s Reign of Terror* Communism is primitive socialism plus electricity* The radio was an essential prerequisite for fascism * AI will unlock ????We read “AI as Governance” by Henry Farrell in order to understand whether and how political scientists are thinking about this question. * Concepts or other...
2025-10-07
58 min
Justified Posteriors
Should AI Read Without Permission?
Many of today’s thinkers and journalists worry that AI models are eating their lunch: hoovering up these authors’ best ideas and giving them away for free or nearly free. Beyond fairness, there is a worry that these authors will stop producing valuable content if they can’t be compensated for their work. On the other hand, making lots of data freely accessible makes AI models better, potentially increasing the utility of everyone using them. Lawsuits are working their way through the courts as we speak of AI with property rights. Society needs a better of understanding the harms and be...
2025-09-22
55 min
Justified Posteriors
EMERGENCY POD: Is AI already causing youth unemployment?
In our first ever EMERGENCY PODCAST, co-host Seth Benzell is summoned out of paternity leave by Andrey Fradkin to discuss the AI automation paper that’s making headlines around the world. The paper is Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence by Erik Brynjolfsson, Bharat Chandar, and Ruyu Chen. The paper is being heralded as the first evidence that AI is negatively impacting employment for young workers in certain careers. Seth and Andrey dive in, and ask — what do we believe about AI’s effect on youth employment going in, and what c...
2025-09-09
51 min
Justified Posteriors
AI and its labor market effects in the knowledge economy
In this episode, we discuss a new theoretical framework for understanding how AI integrates into the economy. We read the paper Artificial Intelligence and the Knowledge Economy (Ide & Talamas, JPE), and debate whether AI will function as a worker, a manager, or an expert. Read on to learn more about the model, our thoughts, timestamp, and at the end, you can spoil yourself on Andrey and Seth’s prior beliefs and posterior conclusions — Thanks to Abdullahi Hassan for compiling these notes to make this possible. The Ide & Talamas ModelOur discussion was based on the pape...
2025-08-25
56 min
Justified Posteriors
One LLM to rule them all?
In this special episode of the Justified Posteriors Podcast, hosts Seth Benzell and Andrey Fradkin dive into the competitive dynamics of large language models (LLMs). Using Andrey’s working paper, Demand for LLMs: Descriptive Evidence on Substitution, Market Expansion, and Multihoming, they explore how quickly new models gain market share, why some cannibalize predecessors while others expand the user base, and how apps often integrate multiple models simultaneously.Host’s note, this episode was recorded in May 2025, and things have been rapidly evolving. Look for an update sometime soon.TranscriptSeth: Welcome to Justif...
2025-08-12
1h 02
Justified Posteriors
What can we learn from AI exposure measures?
In a Justified Posteriors first, hosts Seth Benzell and Andrey Fradkin sit down with economist Daniel Rock, assistant professor at Wharton and AI2050 Schmidt Science Fellow, to unpack his groundbreaking research on generative AI, productivity, exposure scores, and the future of work. Through a wide-ranging and insightful conversation, the trio examines how exposure to AI reshapes job tasks and why the difference between exposure and automation matters deeply.Links to the referenced papers, as well as a lightly edited transcript of our conversation, with timestamps are below:Timestamps:[00:08] – Meet Daniel Rock[02:04] – Why AI? The...
2025-07-28
1h 11
Justified Posteriors
A Resource Curse for AI?
In this episode of Justified Posteriors, we tackle the provocative essay “The Intelligence Curse” by Luke Drago and Rudolf Laine. What if AI is less like a productivity booster and more like oil in a failed state? Drawing from economics, political theory, and dystopian sci-fi, we explore the analogy between AI-driven automation and the classic resource curse.* [00:03:30] Introducing The Intelligence Curse – A speculative essay that blends LessWrong rationalism, macroeconomic theory, and political pessimism.* [00:07:55] Running through the six economic mechanisms behind the curse, including volatility, Dutch disease, and institutional decay.* [00:13:10] Prior #1: Will AI-enabled automation make e...
2025-07-14
1h 09
Justified Posteriors
Robots for the retired?
In this episode of Justified Posteriors, we examine the paper "Demographics and Automation" by economists Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo. The central hypothesis of this paper is that aging societies, facing a scarcity of middle-aged labor for physical production tasks, are more likely to invest in industrial automation.Going in, we were split. One of us thought the idea made basic economic sense, while the other was skeptical, worrying that a vague trend of "modernity" might be the real force causing both aging populations and a rise in automation. The paper threw a mountain of data at...
2025-06-30
1h 00
Justified Posteriors
When Humans and Machines Don't Say What They Think
Andrey and Seth examine two papers exploring how both humans and AI systems don't always say what they think. They discuss Luca Braghieri's study on political correctness among UC San Diego students, which finds surprisingly small differences (0.1-0.2 standard deviations) between what students report privately versus publicly on hot-button issues. We then pivot to Anthropic's research showing that AI models can produce chain-of-thought reasoning that doesn't reflect their actual decision-making process. Throughout, we grapple with fundamental questions about truth, social conformity, and whether any intelligent system can fully understand or honestly represent its own thinking.Timestamps (Transcript...
2025-06-17
1h 09
Justified Posteriors
Scaling Laws Meet Persuasion
In this episode, we tackle the thorny question of AI persuasion with a fresh study: "Scaling Language Model Size Yields Diminishing Returns for Single-Message Political Persuasion." The headline? Bigger AI models plateau in their persuasive power around the 70B parameter mark—think LLaMA 2 70B or Qwen-1.5 72B.As you can imagine, this had us diving deep into what this means for AI safety concerns and the future of digital influence. Seth came in worried that super-persuasive AIs might be the top existential risk (60% confidence!), while Andrey was far more skeptical (less than 1%).Before jumping into th...
2025-06-03
40 min
Justified Posteriors
Techno-prophets try macroeconomics: are they hallucinating?
In this episode, we tackle a brand new paper from the folks at Epoch AI called the "GATE model" (Growth and AI Transition Endogenous model). It makes some bold claims. The headline grabber? Their default scenario projects a whopping 23% global GDP growth in 2027! As you can imagine, that had us both (especially Andrey) practically falling out of our chairs. Before diving into GATE, Andrey shared a bit about the challenge of picking readings for his PhD course on AGI and business – a tough task when the future hasn't happened yet! Then, we broke down the GATE model it...
2025-05-19
1h 06
Justified Posteriors
Did Meta's Algorithms Swing the 2020 Election?
We hear it constantly: social media algorithms are driving polarization, feeding us echo chambers, and maybe even swinging elections. But what does the evidence actually say? In the darkest version of this narrative, social media platform owners are shadow king-makers and puppet masters who can select the winner of close election by selectively promoting narratives. Amorally, they disregard the heightened political polarization and mental anxiety which are the consequence of their manipulations of the public psyche. In this episode, we dive into an important study published in Science (How do social media feed algorithms affect...
2025-05-05
50 min
Justified Posteriors
Claude Just Refereed the Anthropic Economic Index
In this episode of Justified Posteriors, we dive into the paper "Which Economic Tasks Are Performed with AI: Evidence from Millions of Claude Conversations." We analyze Anthropic's effort to categorize how people use their Claude AI assistant across different economic tasks and occupations, examining both the methodology and implications with a critical eye.We came into this discussion expecting coding and writing to dominate AI usage patterns—and while the data largely confirms this, our conversation highlights several surprising insights. Why are computer and mathematical tasks so heavily overrepresented, while office administrative work lag behind? What explains th...
2025-04-21
1h 01
Justified Posteriors
How much should we invest in AI safety?
In this episode, we tackle one of the most pressing questions of our technological age: how much risk of human extinction should we accept in exchange for unprecedented economic growth from AI?The podcast explores research by Stanford economist Chad Jones, who models scenarios where AI might deliver a staggering 10% annual GDP growth but carry a small probability of triggering an existential catastrophe. We dissect how our risk tolerance depends on fundamental assumptions about utility functions, time horizons, and what actually constitutes an "existential risk."We discuss how Jones’ model presents some stark calculations: with ce...
2025-04-07
1h 09
Justified Posteriors
Can AI make better decisions than an ER doctor?
Dive into the intersection of economics and healthcare with our latest podcast episode. How much can AI systems enhance high-stakes medical decision-making? In this episode, we explore the implications of a research paper titled “Diagnosing Physician Error: A Machine Learning Approach to Low Value Health Care” by Sendhil Mullainathan and Ziad Obermeyer.The paper argues that physicians often make predictable and costly errors in deciding who to test for heart attacks. The authors claim that incorporating machine learning could significantly improve the efficiency and outcome of such tests, reducing the cost per life year saved while maintaining or i...
2025-03-24
43 min
Justified Posteriors
If the Robots Are Coming, Why Aren't Interest Rates Higher?
In this episode, we tackle an intriguing question inspired by a recent working paper: If artificial general intelligence (AGI) is imminent, why are real interest rates so low?The discussion centers on the provocative paper, "Transformative AI, Existential Risk, and Real Interest Rates", authored by Trevor Chow, Basil Halperin, and Jay Zachary Maslisch. This research argues that today's historically low real interest rates signal market skepticism about the near-term arrival of transformative AI—defined here as either technology generating massive economic growth (over 30% annually) or catastrophic outcomes like total extinction.We found ourselves initially at od...
2025-03-11
59 min
Justified Posteriors
High Prices, Higher Welfare? The Auto Industry as a Case Study
Does the U.S. auto industry prioritize consumers or corporate profits? In this episode of Justified Posteriors, hosts Seth Benzell and Andrey Fradkin explore the evidence behind this question through the lens of the research paper “The Evolution of Market Power and the U.S. Automobile Industry” by Paul Grieco, Charles Murry, and Ali Yurukoglu.Join them as they unpack trends in car prices, market concentration, and consumer surplus, critique the methodology, and consider how competition and innovation shape the auto industry. Could a different competitive structure have driven even greater innovation? Tune in to find out!
2025-02-24
53 min
Justified Posteriors
Scaling Laws in AI
Does scaling alone hold the key to transformative AI?In this episode of Justified Posteriors, we dive into the topic of scaling laws in artificial intelligence (AI), discussing a set of paradigmatic papers.We discuss the idea that as more compute, data, and parameters are added to machine learning models, their performance improves predictably. Referencing several pivotal papers, including early works from OpenAI and empirical studies, they explore how scaling laws translate to model performance and potential economic value. We also debate the ultimate usefulness and limitations of scaling laws, considering whether purely increasing compute...
2025-02-11
59 min
Justified Posteriors
Is Social Media a Trap?
Are we trapped by the social media we love? In this episode of the “Justified Posteriors” podcast, hosts Seth Benzell and Andrey Fradkin discuss a research paper examining the social and economic impacts of TikTok and Instagram usage among college students. The paper, authored by Leonardo Bursztyn, Benjamin Handel, Rafael Jimenez, and Christopher Roth, suggests that these platforms may create a “collective trap” where users prefer a world where no one used social media, despite the platforms' popularity. Through surveys, the researchers found that students place significant value on these platforms but also experience negative social externalities. The discussion explores...
2025-01-26
37 min
Justified Posteriors
Beyond Task Replacement
In this episode, we discuss Artificial Intelligence Technologies and Aggregate Growth Prospects by Timothy Bresnahan.* We contrast Tim Bresnahan's paper on AI's impact on economic growth, with Daron Acemoglu's task-replacement focused approach from the previous episode.* Bresnahan argues that AI's main economic benefits will come through:* Reorganizing organizations and tasks* Capital deepening (improving existing machine capabilities)* Creating new products and services rather than simply replacing human jobs* We discuss examples from big tech companies:* Amazon's product recommendations* Google's search capabilities* Voice...
2025-01-11
44 min
Justified Posteriors
The Simple Macroeconomics of AI
Will AI's impact be as modest as predicted, or could it exceed expectations in reshaping economic productivity? In this episode, hosts Seth Benzell and Andrey Fradkin discuss the paper “The Simple Macroeconomics of AI” by Daron Acemoglu, an economist and an institute professor at MIT.Additional notes from friend of the podcast Daniel Rock of Wharton, coauthor of “GPTs are GPTs: An Early Look at the Labor Market Impact Potential of Large Language Models” one of the papers cited in the show, and a main data source for Acemoglu’s paper: (1) Acemoglu does not use the paper’s ‘main’ est...
2024-12-21
53 min
Justified Posteriors
Situational Awareness
How close are we to AGI, and what might its impact be on the global stage? In this episode, hosts Seth Benzell and Andrey Fradkin tackle the high-stakes world of artificial intelligence, focusing on the transformative potential of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). The conversation is based on Leopold Aschenbrenner’s essay 'Situational Awareness', which argues that AI's development follows a predictable scaling law that allow for reliable projections about when AGI will emerge. The hosts also discuss Leopold’s thoughts on the geopolitical implications of AGI, including the influence of AI on military and social conflicts.Sp...
2024-12-07
1h 02
Things Have Changed
How to be More Efficient at Imposing Sanctions with Professor Seth Benzell
Send us a text32 years ago, Mcdonalds opened a restaurant in Moscow. Many people interpretted it as a soft integration to the west. In 1990, 30,000 people lined up for the opening at Pushkin Square, for many, it was the first taste of western consumerism. Since then, the Russian people have fallen in love with the Big Mac and the chain has grown all over the country. But today, the American fast-food giant has pulled out of Russia entirely. McDonalds closed over 800 stores in the country and ended up selling their productive resources to the Russians. The n...
2022-06-27
13 min
Things Have Changed
How Effective are Western Sanctions with Professor Seth Benzell
Send us a textAs one of the worlds most televised conflict rages on in Ukraine, western countries, not directly involved, look to utilize a weapon that is forged by economists..The sanctions imposed on Russia are some of the largest and far-reaching the world has ever seen.. with western countries and international corporations completely cutting ties with the once major emerging economy.. But is this economic weapon working?Thanks to the pandemic, Sanctions can exacerbate the issues that already trouble the global supply chains, ultimately contributing to inflation…Here at Th...
2022-06-20
15 min
Things Have Changed
Why Universal Basic Income Can Help Battle Inequality With Prof. Seth Benzell
Send us a textIn our previous episode, we talked to Dr. Seth Benzell about How the Pandemic Changed Global Labor Markets and in this episode, we talk about the work he's done to find a solution to the age-old issue of rising automation. The automation scare is not new. Since the luddites in the 19th century, we've heard the laborers complain about automation. In fact, it is the new standard in todays world. We all hear about the benefits of automation but we are still trying to understand and remediate the negative externalities.
2022-05-16
31 min
Things Have Changed
How the Pandemic Has Changed Global Labor Markets with Prof. Seth Benzell
Send us a textAutomation has been a recurring theme in corporations quest to improve their bottom line and stay competitive. So what has changed post the pandemic?Today we have Dr. Seth Benzell returning on Things Have Changed after 2 long years, and he's here to help us understand the incredible trends shaping the economy. Dr Seth is a Digital Economist, an Assistant Professor at Chapman University, Argyros School of Business and Economics, Fellow at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy as well as the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. Dr. Seth shares with...
2022-05-09
29 min
Ipse Dixit
Seth Benzell on Regulating Facebook
In this episode, Seth G. Benzell, Assistant Professor at Chapman University Argyros School of Business and Economics, discusses his work on how to understand and regulate Facebook, which he co-authored with Avinash Collis. You can read their article, "How to Govern Facebook: A Structural Model for Taxing and Regulating Big Tech," or their white paper, "Modeling Effective Regulation of Facebook." Benzell begins by explaining how their study differs from other studies. He describes the data they collected and how they analyzed it. And he reflects on how the data enabled them to evaluate the likely effectiveness and efficiency of...
2021-04-12
47 min
Things Have Changed
What Are the Jobs of the Future?
Send us a textThere is no surprise that new technology displaces jobs. This very sentiment was the cornerstone of Presidential candidate Andrew Yang campaign - How will automation and AI change the workforce in the future, and what can we do to prepare for it? Mr. Yang and his Gang brought this inescapable issue into the forefront. A greater push toward automation will most certainly kill jobs — human workers will become redundant in certain spheres. An estimated 20% of jobs could be impacted by this technology wave. The top jobs in the US - r...
2020-08-31
21 min
Things Have Changed
Taming The Tech Beasts in 2020
Send us a textThe Big 4 Face CongressThe United States Congress has labelled Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook as monopolies officially for the record. In a statement at the hearing it was said that “some need to be broken, and all need to be regulated”. As big tech gets even bigger, governments around the world seek to regulate them in some way. We just saw congress, in a widely publicized event, ask some really hard questions to the tech leaders in a bipartisan way, even during these increasingly polarized times!
2020-08-24
30 min
Things Have Changed
How Tech Created a Winner-Take-All Economy – with Seth Benzell
Send us a textIn our most recent episode, Things Have Changed had the opportunity to speak and learn from Dr. Seth Benzell, Digital Economist, Assistant Professor at Chapman, Fellow at MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy and the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, and a huge Sci Fi Fantasy aficionado. Automation has been a reoccurring theme in corporations quest to improve their bottom line and stay competitive. Seth is at the forefront of understanding Digital Automation and its implications on employment, growth, and inequality.In ongoing research, he studies the effect of application programming interfaces...
2020-08-17
1h 06
Philadelphia Community Podcast
What's Going on What's Going On - Community College of Philadelphia Enough is Enough Teach-in, MIT Paper on COVID Risk
COVID cases are spiking and Philadelphia has put the pause button on going fully Green on reopening – postponing indoor dining among other things. So what locations are risky for coronavirus infections, not so risky or worth the risk? I had a conversation with an MIT Researcher Seth Benzell who coauthored a paper on that issue. But first there have been some very exciting and positive conversations around racial justice including one at Community College of Philadelphia. I spoke with CCP President Dr. Guy Generals.https://ccp.edu/forms/enough-enoughhttps://ccp.edu/
2020-07-02
32 min
Philadelphia Community Podcast
Insight - VLS Journeys Community College of Philadelphia Enough is Enough Teach-in, MIT Paper on COVID Risk
Guest Host Vanesse Lloyd Sgambati speaks to a travel expert on tips for safely traveling during COVID and talks with State Rep Jordan Harris about What Philadelphia's Reading.COVID cases are spiking and Philadelphia has put the pause button on going fully Green on reopening – postponing indoor dining among other things. So what locations are risky for coronavirus infections, not so risky or worth the risk? I had a conversation with an MIT Researcher Seth Benzell who coauthored a paper on that issue. But first there have been some very exciting and positive conversations around racial justice including on...
2020-07-02
30 min
The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
Episode 123: Economics with Hayek and Sen (Intro by Seth Benzell)
On F.A. Hayek's "The Use of Knowledge in Society" (1945) and Amartya Sen's On Ethics and Economics (1987). Is economics a pseudoscience? Are its assumptions by necessity too over-simplifying? Hayek objects to the idea of planning an economy, because the planners aren't in a position to know enough. With guest Seth Benzell, who starts us off with a "precognition" of the material. End song: "People Who Throw Away Love" by Mark Lint from The Cheese Stands Alone. Get this and every episode ad-free by becoming a PEL supporter at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support.
2015-09-07
2h 15
The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
Precognition of Ep. 123: Economics (F.A. Hayek and Amartya Sen)
Guest Seth Benzell outlines Hayek's "The Use of Knowledge in Society" (1945) and Sen's On Ethics and Economics (1987).
2015-08-19
12 min