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Nicholas Agar

Nicholas Agar

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Nicholas Agar is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Waikato, New Zealand, and the author of How to Be Human in the Digital Economy (MIT Press, 2019). 

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  1. Is AI a Climate Game-Changer?
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    Is AI a Climate Game-Changer?

    Sep 11, 2023 Nicholas Agar, et al. consider what role the technology could play in humanity's response to the climate crisis.

  2. Should Humanities Professors Be Automated?
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    Should Humanities Professors Be Automated?

    Sep 22, 2022 Nicholas Agar considers the implications of recent successes with AI-generated academic research and writing.

  3. Finding Purpose in the Humanities
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    Finding Purpose in the Humanities

    Dec 9, 2021 Nicholas Agar calls for educators to adapt to post-millennial reality by abolishing the traditional term paper.

  4. An Interview with Nicholas Agar
    A man looks at a smartphone Thanasak Wanichpan/Getty Images

    An Interview with Nicholas Agar

    May 26, 2020 Nicholas Agar emphasizes the importance of unchosen social interactions, warns that technology cannot replace them, and wonders whether COVID-19 is enough of a shock to improve the lives of poor people in the long term.

  5. The Horizon Bias in Human Innovation
    agar4_MARK RALSTONAFP via Getty Images_jeffbezosspace Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images

    The Horizon Bias in Human Innovation

    May 1, 2020 Nicholas Agar warns against allowing technological advances to inflate our expectations of forthcoming breakthroughs.

  1. gros189_Sean GallupGetty Images_germanypowerlines Sean Gallup/Getty Images
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    The Improving Economics and Worsening Geopolitics of Clean Energy

    Daniel Gros warns that political obstacles are preventing the widespread uptake of low-cost green technologies.
  2. rajan94_Arvind YadavHindustan Times via Getty Images_indiasemiconductor Arvind Yadav/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
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    Industrial Policy’s Deceptive New Clothes

    Raghuram G. Rajan

    If the new "industrial strategy" is offering ideas for better public governance, it is useful. But it becomes positively dangerous when it turns to the private sector, where state interventions inevitably undermine competition, disrupt price signals, and dampen the motivation to innovate.

     sees little reason to support the case for renewed government interventions in the private sector.
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    A New Trilemma Haunts the World Economy

    Dani Rodrik

    It may be impossible simultaneously to combat climate change, boost the middle class in advanced economies, and reduce global poverty. Under current policy trajectories, any combination of two goals appears to come at the expense of the third.

     weighs the trade-offs between combating climate change, global poverty, and rich countries’ middle-class decline.
  4. hamada66_ Mario TamaGetty Images Mario Tama/Getty Images)
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    The Choice Confronting American Voters

    Koichi Hamada warns that electing a president who refuses to accept defeat could jeopardize not only US democracy.
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    Climate Security and Geopolitics

    Ian Bremmer

    Although multilateral efforts to address climate change are not well served by deepening geopolitical rivalries or the apparent trend toward global economic fragmentation, that doesn’t mean governments have abandoned the pursuit of net-zero emissions. Instead, the process has become more competitive – and more complex.

     considers the international political dynamics of current energy, trade, and environmental policies.
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    Economic Theory for the Real World

    James K. Galbraith

    Although policies based on mainstream neoclassical economics, famously enshrined in the Washington Consensus, have clearly failed, economic theory has remained in a state of paralyzed confusion. What has been missing is a full shift to modern modes of thought informed by contemporary science.

     offers a new conceptual framework based on twenty-first-century science and simple observation.
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    Learning from the US Military’s Climate Leadership

    Sherri Goodman & Leah Emanuel explain how the American armed forces emerged at the forefront of the effort to combat global warming.
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    The Climate-Conflict Nexus

    Kyungmee Kim shows how wars and geopolitical tensions are hindering progress on climate-change mitigation and adaptation.
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    The Water-Security Crisis

    Mariana Mazzucato, et al.

    Increasingly severe water shortages represent a human-made crisis that can be resolved through human interventions. The situation demands new thinking about the economics of this critical resource and how to manage it through mission-oriented strategies that span all levels of governance.

     call attention to a global problem that demands far more attention from policymakers at all levels.

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