The Economics of Violence in the Age of AI
Combining economics and artificial intelligence to make sense of the world.
Gary M. Shiffman brings decades of experience as a national security practitioner-turned-economist, and applied AI researcher to reveal the nature of power and human behavior in the age of AI.
The Framework
An updated approach to seeing human conflict, struggle, and success not observable prior to the recent AI Industrial Revolution
After going to war, traveling the world, and studying economics, Gary led some DARPA research where he realized the promise of uniting behavioral science and computer science. He went on to co-found two AI software companies built to empower those on the front lines against trafficking, fraud, and coercion.
Gary’s work joins the well known methodologies of economic analysis with with the advances of the current AI industrial revolution. By making sense of human decision-making, he empowers people to design better organizations, policies, and tools.
AI, Economics & the Struggle for Power
Gary's research on how AI changes the economics of violence, from the battlefield to the boardroom, autonomous weapons to algorithmic radicalization.
The Economics of Violence
It’s Not the Algorithm, It’s the Ethics
Power Up Through Innovation: AI for Small Businesses
As Featured In
Praise for Gary M. Shiffman
"[Shiffman emphasizes] the argument that a lot of what we're calling terrorists, or insurgents, or criminals are providing something else that is masked by the things that are costly to us as the non-participants of the terror, the death, the activities. And that the opportunity to affiliate with these groups gives participants a way to truck, barter, and exchange more effectively because you can trust their insiders… I thought that was the most provocative idea in the book."
“As advances in behavioral science reveal the complex but animating dynamics of human behavior, all those forces that make us fear, or fight, or give us courage, or move us to some action, nefarious states and organizations are learning how to manipulate people and become drivers of violence. In his illuminating new book, national security veteran Gary M. Shiffman takes us to the edge of understanding the nexus between behavior and organized violence. This is a must read not only for leaders in the defense and security sector, but all leaders who want to better understand the opportunities and the dangers of manipulating human action.”
“Conventional wisdom often views sub-state violence as an irrational expression of religious, tribal or ethnic identity. In his must-read book, Gary M. Shiffman offers a powerful counter, demonstrating that understanding organized violence requires analyzing individual decision-making - and the available incentives and choices. Shiffman combines his own rich experience with deep economic analysis and case studies that range from Pablo Escobar to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and, in so doing, has written a definitive volume on the insights behavioral science offers to national security policymakers.”
Russ Roberts, EconTalk host.
Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University’s Hoover Institution
Steve Clemons, Founding Editor at Large of Semafor, former Editor-at-Large of The Hill and Washington Editor-at-Large of The Atlantic.
Richard Fontaine, Chief Executive Officer of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).
