NBER Economics of Artificial Intelligence Conference 2018

Ajay K. Agrawal, Joshua S. Gans, Avi Goldfarb, and Catherine Tucker, Organizers

September 13-14, 2018

Supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, CIFAR, and the Creative Destruction Lab

Toronto, ON Canada

Presentation Videos

Agenda

Introduction - Ajay Agrawal (Toronto & NBER) (Video)

Machine Learning and Occupational Change (Video)

Erik Brynjolfsson (MIT & NBER)
Tom Mitchell (Carnegie Mellon)
Daniel Rock (MIT)

Discussant: Betsey Stevenson (Michigan & NBER)

AI and Personnel Economics (slides, video)

Kathryn Shaw (Stanford & NBER)

Discussant: David Deming (Harvard)

Automation and Procreation (slides, video)

Hal Varian (Google & NBER)

Discussant: Petra Moser (NYU & NBER)

Two Kinds of Robots in Growth Models: An Introduction (slides, video)

Edmund Phelps (Columbia)

Discussant: Pascual Restrepo (Boston)

Lunch Speaker: Alán Aspuru-Guzik, University of Toronto (video)

Artificial Intelligence as Structural Estimation: Economic Interpretations of Deep Blue, Bonanza, and AlphaGo (slides, video)

Mitsuru Igami (Yale)

Discussant: Whitney Newey (MIT & NBER) (slides)

Contextual Bandits (video)

Susan Athey (Stanford & NBER)

Discussant: Jens Ludwig (Chicago & NBER)

Session on data opportunities

Economic Measurement of AI (video)

Kristina McElheran (Toronto)

Machine Learning and Domain Knowledge (slides, video)

Prasanna Tambe (Pennsylvania)

Startups’ Use of Data for Artificial Intelligence (slides, video)

James Bessen (Boston)
Robert Seamans (NYU)

Discussant: Iain Cockburn (Boston & NBER) (video)

AI, Media, and Fake News (slides, video)

Matthew Gentzkow (Stanford & NBER)

Discussant: Manuel Trajtenberg (Tel Aviv & NBER)

Dinner keynote: Doina Precup (McGill University & DeepMind) (video)

Automation and New Tasks: The Implications of Task Content of Technology for Labor Demand (video)

Daron Acemoglu (MIT & NBER)
Pascual Restrepo (Boston)

Discussant: Melissa Kearney (Maryland & NBER)

Using Machine Learning to Understand Human Decision-Making: Application to Health Care (video)

Sendhil Mullainathan (Chicago & NBER)

Discussant: George Loewenstein (Carnegie Mellon)

Session on theory

Q-Learning to Cooperate (slides, video)

Emilio Calvano, University of Bologna
Giacomo Calzolari, European University Institute
Vencenzo Denicolò, University of Bologna
Sergio Pastorello, University of Bologna

Artificially Intelligent Agents in Our Economy (slides, video)

Anton Korinek (Virginia & NBER)

Should Robots be Taxed? (video)

Joao Guerreiro, Northwestern University
Sergio Rebelo, Northwestern University and NBER
Pedro Teles, Banco de Portugal

Discussant: Joshua Gans (Toronto & NBER) (video)

Incomplete Contracts and AI Alignment (slides, video)

Gillian Hadfield (Toronto)

Discussant: Paul Milgrom (Stanford)

Lunch Speaker: Raquel Urtasun (Toronto & Uber) “A future with affordable self-driving vehicles”

A.I. Policy Considerations (slides, video)

Jason Furman (Harvard)

Discussant: Judith A. Chevalier (Yale & NBER)

Machine Learning as a 'Wind Tunnel' for Research on Human Learning (slides)

Paul M. Romer (NYU & NBER)

Discussant: Scott Stern (MIT & NBER) (video)

Session on consequences of AI-based decisions

Selecting Directors Using Machine Learning (slides, video)

Isil Erel, Ohio State University
Léa H. Stern, University of Washington
Chenhao Tan, University of Colorado, Boulder
Michael S. Weisbach, Ohio State University and NBER

Impact of Algorithms on Judicial Discretion: Evidence from Regression Discontinuities (video)

Bo Cowgill (Columbia)

Discussant: Lisa D. Cook (Michigan State University & NBER) (video)

Open Questions and Research Directions—AI and the Marginal Value of Data (slides, video)

Michael Schwarz (Microsoft)