𝐒𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐡𝐢𝐥 𝐌𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧

.@TheEconomist is a great publication, and I’ve learned a lot from it over the years. But I think it missed the mark with this article on @DAcemogluMIT. Daron and I publicly and privately disagree on a number of important issues, most notably on the likely magnitude of AI’s productivity effects in the coming years. We’ve had many lengthy discussions about our differences, including as recently as last month. That said, Daron is not merely one of the most intelligent, interesting, and hardworking economists I know. He is also a person of great integrity. Since many people may form their impressions of him from this article or other public commentary, let me offer three anecdotes from my own experience. 1. In 2017, @tommmitchell and I co-chaired a @theNASciences committee on information technology and the workforce, bringing together a dozen leading scholars. Committee members were unpaid, and there was little extrinsic reward for doing more than the minimum. Everyone contributed, but unquestionably the person who worked hardest, and produced the most high-quality substantive material, was Daron. I came away enormously impressed by his seriousness and work ethic. 2. The article suggests that Daron’s stature may discourage others from criticizing him. That has not been my experience. I remember an MIT seminar where he presented an early version of his work on robots and employment. He was subjected to exceptionally tough criticism from colleagues and graduate students, especially over his instrumental variables and other aspects of his empirical strategy. It was one of the toughest seminars I can remember. Nobody was pulling punches. If anything, the criticism was blunter because everyone knew Daron was perfectly capable of handling it. 3. Along with @professor_ajay, @akorinek, and @testingham, I helped lead the recent “We Must Act Now” statement on AI (wemustactnow.ai/). One of the first people we approached was Daron precisely because he had disagreed with me about AI capabilities and their likely economic effects. Daron and I went back and forth over the detailed wording for about a week. We ultimately found common ground. In the process, I was reminded of both his openness to new data and his attention to detail. The Economist correctly highlights some important weaknesses in the economics profession. It should certainly scrutinize the work of prominent economists, presenting arguments and counterarguments. In my view, what undermined their case was the article’s shift from criticizing his arguments to innuendo about Daron's personality. The suggestion that economists are unwilling to challenge him does not match what I have observed over 3 decades of knowing him. Criticize Daron’s ideas and conclusions, as I often do. But the personal insinuations struck me as unfair.