AI, Democracy & the Future of Prosperity

About

Daron Acemoglu—Institute Professor at MIT and recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences—joins us at Northeastern for a conversation about artificial intelligence, technological change, and the future of liberal democracy. In his new book, What Happened to Liberal Democracy? Remaking a Politics of Shared Prosperity, Acemoglu examines how the rapid development and deployment of AI is reshaping work, economic power, political institutions, and the conditions for shared prosperity.

Drawing on his Nobel-winning research on technology, power, and economic institutions, as well as his extensive scholarship on the consequences of technological change, Acemoglu places today’s AI transformation within a longer history of technological disruption. He asks how societies can shape AI and other powerful technologies so that they expand human opportunity and strengthen democratic institutions rather than deepen economic and political inequalities.

Best known as the co-author of Why Nations Fail, Acemoglu offers a historically grounded framework for understanding the political economy of AI and its implications for liberal democracy. He also develops the concept of “working-class liberalism” as a potential framework for rebuilding the connection between democratic governance and broadly shared economic prosperity.

Join us for a timely conversation about AI, democracy, work, and the institutional choices that will shape the next era of technological change.

Doors open at 11:45 with a light lunch at the start of the event. Books will be available for sale and signing following the talk.