693. What’s Our Job as Humans Anymore?

About this episode

It may just be being human. Stephen Dubner interviews A.I. performer Tilly Norwood to find out if we are as replaceable as we fear. (Part two of a two-part series.) • SOURCES:• Sean Astin, actor, president of SAG-AFTRA. • Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired. • Ethan Mollick, associate professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. • Tilly Norwood, A.I. performer. • Eline Van der Velden, founder and C.E.O. of Particle6. • Joel Waldfogel, economist at the University of Minnesota. • RESOURCES:• "Quiet, My Exoself," by Kevin Kelly (KK, 2026). • "How Large Language Models Are Reshaping the Book Market," by Imke Reimers and Joel Waldfogel (NBER, 2026). • "Intellectual Property and Creative Machines," by Gaétan De Rassenfosse, Adam B. Jaffe, and Joel Waldfogel (NBER, 2024). • Digital Renaissance: What Data and Economics Tell Us About the Future of Popular Culture, by Joel Waldfogel (2018). • "The Random Long Tail and the Golden Age of Television," by Joel Waldfogel (Innovation Policy and the Economy, 2017). • "Quality Predictability and the Welfare Benefits From New Products: Evidence From the Digitization of Recorded Music," by Luis Aguiar and Joel W