Nobel Prize winner: Major technological leaps such as AI benefit the few

Two of this year's economics prize winners have investigated how major technological advances quickly lead to greater prosperity for a few. For the masses, however, it can take more than half a century to benefit, argues one of the prize winners, Professor Simon Johnson from MIT, in an interview with Swedish Radio.

AI development mainly benefits entrepreneurs

Together with another Nobel laureate in economics, Daren Acemoglu, Johnson has written the book "Power and Progress". In it, the authors explain how technological change has historically been seen as the main driving force for the common good, while numerous examples show that progress only benefits a few.

One example of this is the industrial revolution, in which a small handful of people became very rich very quickly, while factory workers had to wait 60 years before they could share in this wealth, explains Johnson. He is therefore also very critical of today's rapid development of AI, as he believes it mainly benefits a small group of entrepreneurs and investors, while most people have little to gain from it.

Inequality as an important factor in Trump's election victory

Johnson and Acemoglu cite rapid digital development as another example. Since the 1980s, this has led to significant real wage increases for well-educated people like himself, while men without a university education in the USA have not experienced an increase in income since the 1960s, they say in "Power and Progress".

This has led to a growing anger among many people in the US, which could have been decisive in the recent US presidential election, the Nobel Prize-winning economist believes. "I think Donald Trump has channeled the anger, and the economic problem we need to address now is how we distribute wealth," Johnson told Swedish Radio.

(mch)