Power and Progress — Nobel Laureate Simon Johnson on Why AI Is Repeating Industrial-Era Mistakes

January 1, 2026

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About the Guest

Simon Johnson

Co-Winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics & Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management

Simon Johnson is an economist and the Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is a co-recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on institutions and prosperity. Johnson is the co-author of Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity and has served as Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund. His research focuses on technology, economic growth, inequality, and the future of work.

Episode Overview

What if AI is repeating the same mistakes society made during the Industrial Revolution?

In this episode of Technovation, Peter is joined by Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics and Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management Simon Johnson. Throughout their conversation, they explore why automation has historically failed to deliver shared prosperity and why artificial intelligence may be following the same path. Drawing on centuries of economic history, Johnson explains how mechanization once displaced workers faster than new jobs were created, fueling inequality and social unrest.

Together, they discuss what today’s AI leaders must learn from history, why institutions matter more than technology alone, and how workforce anxiety is an early warning sign of deeper structural problems.

Key topics include: