Week 9: Memos - The Ends of Innovation

[jamesallenevans]

Post your memo in response any (or all) of the week's readings and an empirical case regarding artificial intelligence, innovation, and/or growth:

• “Machine science.” 2010. James Evans and Andrey Rzhetsky. Science 329(5990): 399-400.
• “Catching crumbs from the table.” 2000. Ted Chiang. Nature 405(517).
• “Machine learning as a tool for hypothesis generation.” 2023. Jens Ludwig, Sendhil Mullainathan. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 139 (2): 751-827.
• “AI Expands Scientists’ Impact but Contracts Science’s Focus.” 2025. Hao, Qianyue, Fengli Xu, Yong Li, James Evans.
• Supplementary:
• “AI Scientist: Towards Fully Automated Open-Ended Scientific Discovery.” 2023. Chris Lu, Cong Lu, Robert Tjarko Lange, Jakob Foerster, Jeff Clune, David Ha
• “Innovation and Top Income Inequality,” 2019. Philippe Aghion, Ufuk Akcigit, Antonin Bergeaud Richard Blundell, and David Hemous), Review of Economic Studies, 2019, 86(1): 1-45.
• “Creative Destruction and Subjective Well-Being,” 2016. Philippe Aghion, Ufuk Akcigit, Angus Deaton and Alexandra Roulet, American Economic Review, 106(12): 3869-3897.

Post by Thursday @ midnight. By 1pm Friday, each student will up-vote (“thumbs up”) what they think are the five most interesting memos for that session. The memo should be 300–500 words (text) + 1 custom analytical element (e.g., equation, graphical figure, image, etc.) that supports or complements your argument. These memos should: 1) test out ideas and analyses you expect to become part of your final projects; and 2) involve a custom (non-hallucinated) theoretical and/or empirical demonstration that will result in the relevant analytical element. Because these memos relate to an empirical case students hope to further develop into a substantial final project and because they involve original analytical work, they will be very difficult to produce with generative AI and we strongly discourage you from attempting it. Some of the top-voted memos will form the backbone of discussion in our full class discussion and break-out room sessions.