Economist: The First-Order Effect of AI on Academia is Higher Ambition

Afinetheorem · x · 2026-08-13

Economist Alex Tabarrok endorsed the view that the first-order effect of AI on academic work is that "the ambition should be higher"—promoting "faster-better-bigger research rather than more-faster-shallower research."

He admitted he is still trying to get this right himself and recommended Deivy Houeix's job market paper as a great example of leveraging AI to elevate research ambition, encouraging researchers to read it carefully.

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