Issues

Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) now offer improved predictions, which will reduce uncertainty and lead to the redesign of business strategies. AI will affect jobs, the concentration of corporate power, privacy, and politics around the world.

Law, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) will be widely used for social and commercial purposes. AR and VR will sometimes be used to harm others, testing the limits of criminal, civil, and constitutional law.

Global Collaborative Patents

Some firms based in the United States file collaborative patents on inventions made by teams with members inside and outside the United States. This collaborative innovation is growing in importance. Collaborative patents tend to be of high quality.

Algorithmic Bias? An Empirical Study of Apparent Gender-Based Discrimination in the Display of STEM Career Ads

The use of algorithms to make decisions can lead to bias; one algorithm displayed a “gender neutral” ad to more men than women. The algorithm was designed to be cost-effective; because advertisers pay more to display ads to young women, the ad was shown to fewer women.

How Effective is Black-Box Digital Consumer Profiling and Audience Delivery?: Evidence from Field Studies

Little is known about how data brokers create consumer profiles for use in marketing. Analysis shows that digital profiles purporting to identify consumers by age and gender are often inaccurate. Advertisers globally waste $7 billion annually buying such profiles.

Remedies for Robots

Robots will sometimes harm others. Legal remedies for harm compensate an injured party or punish wrong-doing. But robots are complex, and cannot be deterred from wrongdoing as humans are.

Rendering Sensible Salient 

Technological changes threaten democracy, producing polarization and fragmentation. Deliberative conventions of ordinary citizens could help restore a common understanding of issues.

Innovation, Openness, and Platform Control

This paper asks why some products, like Microsoft’s Windows, are made to work with those produced by others.

Growth Through Heterogeneous Innovations

A firm’s size affects its choice of innovation strategy. A new economic model of innovation helps explain the tendency of new entrants and incumbent producers to innovate differently, and their differing effects of economic growth.

Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future

Successful new firms like Facebook reflect the changing balance between human minds and machines, between traditional products and platforms, and between experts and crowds. People skills will become more important.