Economist: AI makes collecting original data and making the illegible legible far more valuable
soumitrashukla9 · x · 2026-10-09
Economist Chris Blatts quotes an observation that empirical economists lived through 20 years when data grew faster than the intelligence available to process it, building careers on finding insights in publicly accessible data. His bet: the return to collecting original data, making illegible information legible, and studying clandestine and informal interactions is going way up — AI supplies the analysis, so unique data becomes the scarce asset.
Related event: Economists Say AI Ends the Era of Easy Public-Data Insights(2 posts)→
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