Justin Wolfers
Professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan, a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and author of a widely used i...
“I always knew what I would be doing in a decade's time. That assumption is now gone. I don't know. … I'm worried about the risk my car gets stolen. I go buy car insurance. Well, what's the equivalent of car insurance for the AI moment? We haven't had a serious, mature, grown-up political conversation about that.”
Platypus Economics with Justin Wolfers · Money & Markets · November 2026
Context
Responding to a listener worried about her retirement, Wolfers adds a third source of economic fear for people of working age: the uncertainty over what AI does to careers, a risk nobody can yet insure against.
Transcript
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…love to hear your response to that, Justin. And I'm especially interested in the way that this question illuminates the cost of health care and the price of being able to stay in good health in this country, which is something that I think gets more and more expensive for many people every year.
…through my working life. I always knew what I would be doing in a decade's time. That assumption is now gone. I don't know. And I fear that you don't know, Augusta. And I fear that many of our audience don't know either. And that's a real risk. And the thing about risk is, one, it creates that fear in the pit of your stomach. And two, think bad things could happen. And what do we want to do? I'm worried about the risk my car gets stolen. I go buy car insurance. Well, what's the equivalent of car insurance for the AI moment? We haven't had a serious, mature, grown-up political conversation about that. But that risk, I think people feel very, very acutely. And we need to do something about.
I think you could also make the case that AI was to some degree on the ballot last night, especially in Texas, where an enormous number of data centers are planned. And there were two very unlikely Democratic nominations and wins. And I am curious if you see a path forward now to having a national…
Yeah. Great question. We could spend four and a half hours on it. Let's do that tomorrow. Let's do it. Let's do it. It'll be great. Nate Silver has made the case that he thought data centers would turn out to be a really big electoral issue this time around. I think he's going to have to wait a…
Okay, well, I'd like to end by reading you this response that we got from Mark in Miami, Florida. Mark wrote, I feel fortunate and blessed to live in the United States of America, a land of freedom and opportunity. Economically, 2026 has been very good to me. Higher asset prices, particularly in…
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