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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. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. An Interview with Nicholas Agar
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    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.

  4. 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.

  5. Automating Segregation
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    Automating Segregation

    Oct 28, 2019 Nicholas Agar worries that involuntary social interactions will be one of the casualties of the digital economy.

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    Resentment on the Western Front

    Sławomir Sierakowski thinks the Polish public needs a more open and honest conversation about refugees before resentment spirals.
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    Crypto’s Well-Worn Path to Crisis

    Xavier Vives writes that, despite the novelty of the assets, the narrative of FTX’s collapse was established long ago.
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    The Unavoidable Crash

    Nouriel Roubini anticipates a stagflationary debt crisis, owing to a dangerous combination of inflation and over-borrowing.
  4. nye236_SAUL LOEBAFP via Getty Images_biden xi SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
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    War Over Taiwan?

    Joseph S. Nye, Jr. considers whether a deterrence arrangement that has worked for 50 years is still sufficient.
  5. op_livingston1_Anna MoneymakerGetty Images_fed Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
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    The Contested Fed

    James Livingston

    By all accounts, central banks – particularly the Fed, because the dollar is still the world’s dominant currency – already act as investment authorities. But their recent bailouts have exacerbated economic inequality, and have done little or nothing to address climate change.

     reviews three books that, each in its own way, reveal a central truth about the world’s leading central bank.
  6. pisaniferry140_Sean GallupGetty Images_cop27 Sean GallupGetty Images
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    The Economics of Mainstreaming Climate Action

    Jean Pisani-Ferry & Selma Mahfouz identify the risks and short-term costs associated with the energy transition over the next decade.
  7. haldar15_ Tayfun CoskunAnadolu Agency via Getty Images_twitter Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
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    Killing Twitter

    Antara Haldar explains what Elon Musk fundamentally misunderstands about the platform – and about free speech.
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    The Napoleons of Big Tech

    Bill Emmott

    Recent events in the technology sector suggest that investors and lenders should be demanding a premium to cover the risk that a star entrepreneur will become an egomaniacal dictator. With each business cycle, it seems, old lessons must be relearned.

     sees in the industry’s harsh reckoning this year lessons that apparently can’t be learned often enough.
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    The Crypto Emperor’s New Clothes

    The collapse of several crypto platforms this year – including the spectacular crash of the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange, FTX – has raised fundamental questions about the credibility of a digital innovation once hailed as the key to democratizing finance. Has crypto finally been exposed as a scam, or will a new, stronger crypto industry emerge from the current turmoil?

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