“AI has great growth potential because it automates tasks, both in the production of goods and services as well as in the production of ideas, but the problem is the lack of competition,” says the economist.
Minutes before being awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences alongside Peter Howitt and economic historian Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion was interviewed via video call by the president of the Competition Authority (AdC), Nuno Cunha Rodrigues, and board member Ana Sofia Rodrigues.
The interview will be broadcast during the VII Lisbon Conference on Competition Law and Economics, taking place today and Friday at the Lisbon Congress Center.
During the conversation, Philippe Aghion illustrated his reasoning by recalling that information technology giants such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon “boosted growth in the U.S.” but, as they expanded through mergers and acquisitions, “ended up hindering the entry of new competitors.”
The academic stresses the need to prevent “the fantastic growth potential of AI from being inhibited by inadequate competition policy.”
“We need to extend the digital market law to the entire AI value chain. And in terms of regulation, we must avoid excessive regulation. Large companies know how to deal with it, but potential new competitors do not.”
Philippe Aghion is a professor at Collège de France and INSEAD in Paris, and a visiting professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in London.
He has also held prominent academic positions at University College London (UCL), the University of Oxford in the UK, MIT, and Harvard University in the U.S.
In France, he was a chief economic advisor to President Emmanuel Macron at the time of his first election.
[News updated at 15:28]
