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What Alex Imas thinks about economists

@alex-imas · 18 positions · 0 changes of mind

Behavioural economist at Chicago Booth, professor of behavioural science and economics and director of AGI economics at Google DeepMind.

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2 dated positions, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Alex Imas has said — not written or endorsed by them.

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  1. Our readingIndividual economists' forecasts about AI and the labour market are close to worthless, and aggregated forecasts from prediction markets should replace them.

    Their wordsrather than thinking about individual forecasts like what me and Phil are going to do, rather looking at kind of like basically generating prediction markets, where you get aggregate forecasts, where you get like kind of wisdom of the crowd effects. And kind of the reason that I think this is because we have been famously terrible at forecasting.

    ↗The better AI gets, the smaller its share of the economy might get – Alex Imas and Phil Trammellyoutube.com 2nd of 33 in this recording

    AI and jobs

  3. Our readingDavid Ricardo's prediction that the machines would take those jobs was exactly right, and he would still be astonished by today's employment rate.

    Their wordsAnd if you look at Ricardo's predictions, they're actually right. If you look at all those jobs that made money in Ricardo's time, they got automated. So, if I was David Ricardo and I woke up and somebody told me all those jobs did get automated. And you ask me David Ricardo, like what do you think the prime age employment rate is in 2026? I think he would be surprised if you told him it was the highest it's ever been other than 2000.

    ↗The better AI gets, the smaller its share of the economy might get – Alex Imas and Phil Trammellyoutube.com 3rd of 33 in this recording