The Good Fight Luis Garicano on the Economics of Artificial Intelligence
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Apr 25, 2026 
Luis Garicano, Professor of Public Policy at LSE and former MEP, studies technology, labor markets, and institutions. He argues AI could be as transformative as the industrial revolution for cognitive work. He details which knowledge tasks AI handles now, why productivity gains may be constrained, how AI complements rather than fully replaces workers, and the political and transitional risks of adoption.
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AI Could Be An Industrial Revolution For Cognition
- AI is likely as transformative for cognitive work as the Industrial Revolution was for manual work.
- Luis Garicano cites rapid model development and market reactions showing many white-collar functions becoming automatable.
Early Evidence Favors AI Complementarity Over Replacement
- Early evidence shows AI often complements workers rather than replaces them.
- Garicano notes translators, customer service, and programmers haven't seen large employment drops yet despite task-level capabilities.
Automating Six Months Of Research In Ten Hours
- Garicano used Claude Code to automate a six-month research pipeline on 46,000 European Parliament speeches in about 10 hours.
- The tool classified speeches, ran statistical analyses, and produced all figures and tables end-to-end.