Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'spontaneous order'

August 18, 2020

The futility of artificial intelligence economics

Salesforce, an American cloud-based software company, earlier this year announced an initiative to develop an artificial intelligence economist. Stephan Zheng, the lead research scientist at Salesforce Research, describes the moonshot goal of this project as to “build a reinforcement learning framework that will recommend economic policies that drive social outcomes in the real world, such as improving sustainability, productivity, and equality.” Continue Reading...
March 14, 2017

Economist as prophet vs. savior

What do economists actually know? What can they possibly know? Assuming his usual role as the insider skeptic, economist Russ Roberts ponders those questions at length, concluding that far too much economic analysis is conducted and promoted with far too little humility. Continue Reading...
July 11, 2016

Pokémon Go, community, and spontaneous order

The long awaited augmented reality mobile game Pokémon Go, based on the long running video game franchise, was released in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand late last week. The game allows players to find and capture Pokémon, like the famous Pikachu, in the real world as they walk around streets and parks throughout their cities. Continue Reading...
November 21, 2014

Swift vs. Spotify and the Future of the Struggling Artist

Taylor Swift recently made waves when her record label pulled her entire catalog off Spotify, a popular music streaming service. Fans and critics responded in turn, banging their chests and wailing in solidarity, meming and moaning across the Twitterverse about the plight of the Struggling Artist and the imperialism of mean old Master Spotify. Continue Reading...