I started a newsletter about AI

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Two months ago I put Full Stack Economics on hold (including suspending paid subscriptions—more on this below) to launch a newsletter called Understanding AI. I will not be cross-posting articles between the two newsletters, so if you want to get my latest work please click here and subscribe. It would mean a lot to me.

I expect that fans of Full Stack Economics will enjoy Understanding AI. For example, this morning I published an article about the likely impact of artificial intelligence on the labor market:

In the early 2010s, Silicon Valley thought leaders looked at the early success of companies like Airbnb and Uber, extrapolated wildly, and concluded that software was going to transform the entire economy. Today, AI thought leaders are looking at the early success of ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion, extrapolating wildly, and concluding that AI software is going to transform the economy and put tons of people out of work.

To be clear, I do think AI is going to be a big deal. I wouldn’t have started an AI newsletter otherwise. But as with the Internet, I expect the impact to be concentrated in information-focused industries and occupations. And most of the American economy is not information-focused: It’s focused on delivering physical goods and services like homes, cars, restaurant meals, and haircuts. It will be hard for AI to have a big impact on these industries for the same reasons that it’s been hard for Internet startups to do so.

In previous weeks, I wrote about the copyright lawsuits that threaten to upend the AI industry and about voice cloning technology that’s so good my mother couldn’t tell the difference. I’ll write more about the economic and policy implications of AI in the coming weeks.

Right now, Understanding AI is an experiment. If it proves popular, I’ll continue doing it indefinitely, which would mean keeping Full Stack Economics on the back burner. If Understanding AI isn’t so popular, I’ll switch back to doing Full Stack Economics full time in a couple of months.

Here’s what this means for you as a paying subscriber:

• Monthly subscriptions have been on hold since the start of February. I’ll resume them if and when I return to writing Full Stack Economics.

• Annual subscribers will get a pro-rated refund if I decide not to resume full-time work on Full Stack Economics. I expect to make this decision in a couple of months.

Again, if you’d like to follow my work at my new newsletter, Understanding AI, please click here to subscribe. Thank you so much for supporting my work.