Joining Cardiff for this episode is Avi Goldfarb, Rotman Chair In Artificial Intelligence and Healthcare At The Rotman School Of Management, University Of Toronto, and the co-author (with his fellow economists Ajay Agrawal and Joshua Gans) of an excellent new book, “Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence”.

In their chat, Avi and Cardiff discuss:

• Why AI is best understood as a “prediction technology”
• Examples of AI already in use
• Which parts of the economy could be transformed by AI, and how
• Historical analogies to previous eras of widespread technological disruption
• How AI will change the way people and companies make decisions
• Why this change will shift institutions away from blunt rules and towards individual discretion
• In the labor market, who will gain and who will lose from the adoption of AI
• What the use of AI might teach us about what it means to be human

And all throughout the chat, they look at the fundamental question of whether artificial intelligence is about to make the economy—and the world—a whole lot weirder. And if so, just how far along that path to weirdness are we already?