Acemoglu’s Scientific Palette and Disruptive Technologies

Abstract

Daron Acemoglu and his co-authors adopt a mainstream approach in articles. In their books, they exhibit a biased analysis by employing taxonomic structures, selectively choosing historical examples, and downplaying significant factors like globalization, status emulation, and collective consciousness. Their analyses, centered on individual decision-making, overlook the evolutionary perspective. In this article, I argue that since the early 1980s, the new ICT-based wave of monopolization/oligopolization and globalization affected income distribution negatively within countries but positively between countries. The recent advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI), which is also dealt with by Acemoglu and Simon Johnson in their book Power and Progress, seems to increasingly affect income inequality and to strengthen the power of Big Tech. An evolutionary institutional perspective, wherein the social selection mechanism itself adjusts to changing social conditions, might provide a counterbalance to anxious AI concerns.