ECON 101
AI as the Fourth Industrial Revolution?
By Robert Eyler I n October 2025, a portion of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences went to Joel Moykr, an economic historian who taught at Northwestern University. His work on the Industrial Revolution as an economic phenomenon, specifically between 1700 and 1900 in Europe, became a foundational reading in graduate courses in economic history. At UC Davis, where I went to graduate school in economics and studied economic history, coursework and readings focused on how industrial revolutions emerged from invention, innovation and empire, including the United States shifting from a colonial territory to a world economic power. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not a new technology for planet Earth. Still, the amount of funding that has made its way to the future is at historic levels, raising concerns and creating unspeakable fortunes. There is a lot of talk, primarily because it fills headlines, that we are on the precipice of a fourth industrial revolution. A common theme across the previous three revolutions is
the mechanization of human tasks. This started with steam engines, then electric engines, and now (maybe) synthetic brain power. In all cases, the threat of labor displacement en masse has served as a specter, casting a shadow over the positive aspects of new technologies. Like other “new” technologies, we are in a wave of innovation on previous technologies (think ChatGPT 5.1 had a
1.0 version in the past, hence innovation, not invention). Economists and historians are beginning to look for
18 NorthBaybiz
January 2026
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