Nobel Laureate Daron Acemoglu on the ‘brainless’ AI discourse, the myth of capitalism and the Gen Z revolution risk

Daron Acemoglu has a number for everything. The MIT economist — who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2024 for his work on institutions and prosperity — estimates that roughly 0.55% in total factor productivity gains is what AI will actually deliver over the next decade, a fraction of Wall Street’s euphoric projections. He estimates only about 5% of tasks will be profitably automated in the near term, equivalent to a 1% or 1.5% increase in GDP. And when asked how much of the current AI discourse he finds intellectually serious, he doesn’t hesitate: about 20%. “I find all of this discussion of capitalism so brainless,” Acemoglu told Fortune, insisting that we should be focused on the “enormous increase” in corporate power and monopoly instead. “That’s what we should be talking about. What we should be talking about is the displacement and unequalizing roles of AI.” When asked how much of the discourse he finds, in his words “brainless,” he barely paused. “About 80%,” he said. He clarified that the thinking is rather speculative or close to fictional, not stupid per se. “Unfortunately, a lot of the left is a big contributor to that,” he added, stressing that it’s a central point of his forthcoming book What Happened to Liberal Democracy? “The success of liberal democracy was rooted in social democratic, center-left ideas, and governments playing a leading role. And that space cannot be filled by stupid ideas and by being completely unaware of, you know, what AI is doing, what are its capabilities, what are its implications, nor could it be filled by, Frankfurt School-influenced quasi-Marxist oppressed/oppressor dynamics applied to everything.” He added acidly that he’s grown sick of the phrase “colonizing AI” as an example of unhelpful Marxist rhetoric, detached from a center-left lens that would actually be practical and hel