The James M. and Kathleen D. Stone Center on Inequality and Shaping the Future of Work officially launched on November 3, 2025, bringing together scholars, policymakers, and practitioners to explore important questions about economic opportunity, technology, and democracy.
The new Stone Center, co-directed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professors Daron Acemoglu, David Oeter, and Simon Johnson, analyzes the factors that contribute to rising income and wealth inequality through the erosion of job quality and labor market opportunities for workers without degrees. The center will identify innovative ways to put the economy on a more just trajectory.
MIT President Anantha Chandrakasan opened the launch event by emphasizing the urgency and importance of the center’s mission. “As artificial intelligence tools become more powerful and more widely deployed, we will need to strive to help people from all kinds of backgrounds find opportunities in the economy,” he said.
Below are some of the key takeaways from participants in an afternoon discussion on wealth inequality, liberalism, and pro-worker AI.
Wealth inequality is caused by private enterprise and public policy
Princeton University’s Owen Gidar emphasized that owners of businesses such as car dealerships, construction companies and franchises make up a large portion of the top 1%. “For every CEO of a publicly traded company that gets a lot of attention, there are 1,000 self-employed people with assets of at least $25 million,” he explained. These executives have significant political influence through excessive representation, lobbying, and donations.
Princeton University’s Atif Mian linked rising inequality to the U.S. debt crisis, arguing that huge savings at the top are not being channeled into productive investments. In fact, lower interest rates will force the government to run even larger budget deficits.
To reduce wealth inequality, speakers highlighted policy proposals such as reducing the 20% deduction for private business owners and increasing taxes on wealth.
However, policies must be carefully designed. Antoinette Score of the MIT Sloan School of Management explained how mortgage subsidy policies after the 2008 financial crisis actually exacerbated inequality by putting poorer potential homeowners at a disadvantage.
Government must provide basic public goods and economic security
Mark Dunkelman of Brown University’s Watson School of Global and Public Affairs pointed out that excessive red tape is a key problem for modern liberal democracies. “We can’t build high-speed rail. We can’t build enough housing,” he explained. “That then galvanizes ordinary people who want the government to reach out to the populist camp. We did this to ourselves.”
Josh Cohen of Apple University/University of California, Berkeley, emphasized that liberalism must not only protect individual freedom, but also provide shared prosperity and fair opportunity. When people lack economic security, they may turn to leaders who abandon liberal principles altogether.
Liberal democracies need to adapt while preserving their core values
Helena Rosenblatt Dahl of the City University of New York Graduate Center pointed out that liberalism and democracy were not always allies. Historically, “civic equality was very important, but political equality was not,” she said. “Liberals were very wary of the public.”
Speakers emphasized that the challenge for liberalism today is to maintain its commitment to limiting authoritarian power and protecting fundamental freedoms while addressing its failures.
In Dunkelman’s view, doing so means working to “eradicate the seeds of populism by ensuring that governments properly balance individual rights with the will of the majority.”
Social media regulation is necessary for people-centered politics
In his keynote address at the launch, U.S. Representative Jake Auchincloss (Massachusetts 4th District) connected these concepts of government effectiveness and public trust with the impact of technology. He emphasized the need to regulate social media platforms.
“In my opinion, media is above culture, which is above politics,” he says. “If we want a better culture, and certainly better politics, we need better media.”
Auchincloss suggested regulations should include holding social media companies accountable for their content and banning targeted advertising to minors.
He also reiterated the urgency and importance of the center’s research agenda, particularly in understanding whether AI will augment or replace the workforce.
“My bias has always been that technology creates more jobs,” he says. “Maybe this time it will be different. I might be wrong.”
Augmentation is key to pro-worker AI, but alternative AI architectures may be needed
Daron Acemoglu, co-director of the Stone Center, argued that to achieve pro-worker AI, it is essential to extend what humans can do, rather than automating tasks.
But Acemoglu warned that this will not happen naturally, noting that tech companies’ business models and focus on artificial general intelligence are not aligned with workers’ vision for AI. This vision is likely to require public investment in alternative AI architectures focused on “domain-specific trusted knowledge.”
Ethan Mollick of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania said that the AI lab is clearly trying to “replace humans in every way” and that he is “absolutely confident that it will be possible in the very near future.”
Companies, on the other hand, “don’t have a model for implementing AI,” Mollick explained. “There is total chaos,” he said, stressing the urgency for intervention. “There is enough money at stake to keep the machine moving forward.”
In a glimpse of what such an intervention could look like, Microsoft’s Zana Bucinca shared research showing that considering worker values and perceptions in AI design enables better complementarity.
“AI’s impact on human work is not destiny,” she stressed. “It’s the design.”
