Robin D Hanson

Robin D Hanson

Robin D Hanson

Associate Professor

Health economics, political economy

Robin Hanson is an Associate Professor of Economics, and received his Ph.D in 1997 in social sciences from Caltech. He joined George Mason's economics faculty in 1999 after completing a two-year post-doc at U.C Berkely. His major fields of interest include health policy, regulation, and formal political theory.

Dr. Hanson's personal homepage includes his work in academic economics, class materials, and a sampling of his broader interests in economics, philosophy, political theory, alternative institutions, and the economics of science fiction.

Selected Publications

Books

The Elephant In The Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life, with Kevin Simler, Oxford University Press, spring 2017.

The Age of Em: Work, Love and Life When Robots Rule The Earth, Oxford University Press, June 1, 2016.

The Hanson-Yudkowsky AI-Foom Debate, with Eliezer Yudkowsky, Berkeley, CA: Machine Intelligence Research Institute. 2013.

 

Peer Reviewed Publications

Are Disagreements Honest?, with Tyler Cowen, Journal of Economic Methodology, to appear.

Shall We Vote on Values, But Bet on Beliefs?, Journal of Political Philosophy, 21(2):151-178, June, 2013.

Meet The New Conflict, Same As The Old Conflict, Journal of Consciousness Studies 19(1-2):119-125, 2012.

Gaming Prediction Markets: Equilibrium Strategies with a Market Maker, with Yiling Chen, Stan Dimitrov, Rahul Sami, Daniel Reeves, David Pennock, Lance Fortnow, Rica Gonen, Algorithmica, 58(4):930-969, 2010.

On Market Maker Functions, Journal of Prediction Markets 3(1):61-63, April 2009.

A Manipulator Can Aid Prediction Market Accuracy, with Ryan Oprea, Economica, 76(302):304-314, April, 2009.

An Experimental Test of Combinatorial Information Markets, with John Ledyard, Takashi Ishikida, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 69:182-189, 2009.

 

Book chapters

Decision Markets As Meta-Policy, pp. 109-112, In Reviving Economic Growth: Policy Proposals from 51 Leading Experts, Ed. Brink Lindsey, Cato Institute, September 29, 2015.

A Tale Of Two Transitions, in The End of the Beginning: Life, Society and Economy on the Brink of the Singularity, ed. Ben Goertzel, Ted Goertzel, pp. 70-80, Humanity+ Press, May 15, 2015.

What Will It Be Like To Be An Emulation? pp.298-309 in ed. Russell Blackford, Damien Broderick, Intelligence Unbound: The Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds, Wiley, August 18, 2014.

Comments on "Intelligence Explosion: Evidence and Import," pp.41-42, and Comments on "Some Economic Incentives Facing a Business that Might Bring About a Technological Singularity," p.159. in Singularity Hypotheses: A Scientific and Philosophical Assessment, ed. Amnon H. Eden, James H. Moor, Johnny H. Søraker, Eric Steinhart, Springer, 2013.

 

Other Publications

First, we will upload brains to computers. Then, those computers will take over the world, Tech Insider, April 30, 2016.

The "Em" Economy: Imagine a future dominated by brain emulation robots, Angle Journal 13, June 22, 2015. 

How to Survive a Robot Uprising, Reason 46(11), April 1, 2015.

Should Earth Shut the Hell Up?, Pascal's Alien Wager, Slow Growth Is Plenty Fast, Adapted Aliens, and Selection Is Coming, Cato Unbound, December 2014.

Regulating Infinity, Global Government Venturing, pp.30-31, September 2014.

When the Economy Transcends Humanity, The Futurist, January-February, 2014.

Who Cares About Forecast Accuracy?, Cato Unbound, July 2011.

Courses Taught

Econ 415

Econ 844

Dissertations Supervised

Kenneth Lee, Essays in Health Economics: Empirical Studies on the Determinants of Health (2011)

Iwona Kicinger, Essays in Health Economics: Empirical Studies on Employment-Based Health Insurance Plans and Hospice Care (2009)