What Does It Cost to Make a Worker? Comparing AI and Human Labor Economics

Azeem's sketchbook explores the economic trade-off between AI and human labor by estimating the minimum cost of creating an economically useful worker — parenting, educating and feeding a person from child to adult — and comparing it with the cost of deploying a machine capable of the same work. The note frames AI as manufactured intelligence that is highly replicable and follows a learning curve, while human intelligence takes far longer to develop with uncertain outcomes.