Good - Bad AI? c/o FT Magazine et al.

My source: Tim Harford, How can we tell good AI from bad? FT Magazine. 21 March 2026. #1168: pp.9-10.

    'Two new working papers address the tricky issue of verifying quality. In "Some Simple Economics of AGI", Christian Catalini, xiang Hui and Jane Wu (assisted, sometimes gratingly, by generative AI) propose the inevitable 2x2 matrix in which economic activity can be easy to automate, easy to verify, both or neither. Automatable, verifiable output is the stuff that computers do for us. The non-automatable stuff remains reassuringly artisanal.
    The difficult quadrant is where tasks seem easy to complete but are hard to check. Catalini, Hui and Wu call this the "runaway risk zone". It is not a reassuring label and it is not meant to be.
...
    In the second paper, "A model of Artificial Jagged Intelligence", Joshua Gans offers an analogy in which asking AI to perform task is like trying to cross a river over a network of planks supported by occasional pylons. The jagged frontier is represented by the fact that some planks are long and wobbly, while others are short and sturdy. Problem one: even if the planks are typically sturdy, the wobbly planks will require most of your time and attention. Problem two: if you can't predict in advance which planks will let you down, you may quite sensibly prefer to eschew the AI entirely and row yourself across the old-fashioned way.'

Catalini, C., Hui, X., & Wu, J. (2026). Some Simple Economics of AGI. arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.20946.

Joshua S. Gans, 2026. "A Model of Artificial Jagged Intelligence," NBER Working Papers 34712, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

Previously: 'safety' : 'ai' : 'domain' : 'matrix'

Capital -ism in Hodges' model

The New Nature of Business

'In The New Nature of Business, Luc's son André, now vice-chair of Roche, and co-author Peter Vanham lay out how to bring these parallel tracks together. "The business of business isn't just m of business," they write. "The business of business is to at least preserve and where possible expand the world's human, social, environmental and financial capital." 

 The book makes the familiar case that maximising short-term profit leads to long-term destruction of value. But it also suggests that a "narrow focus on [reducing] carbon emissions" could have dangerous unintended consequences. Those four "capitals" depend on one another, write Hoffmann and Vanham. They call for nothing less than a systemic change to a "sustainable, inclusive form of capitalism, with new principles, and new practices".

The most interesting parts of the book describe Hoffmann's path to the realisation in the early 2000s that the profit- making power of business should be harnessed in the quest for sustainability.' (My emphasis with some re-formatting.)

Hill, A. (2024) The sweeter pill, FTWeekend, Life&Arts, 28-29 September. p.11. 

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

HUMAN	ENVIRONMENTAL the new nature
SOCIAL	of business FINANCIAL

Andre Hoffmann, Peter Vanham (2024) The New Nature of Business: The Path to Prosperity and Sustainability. London: Wiley. ISBN: 978-1-394-25754-6

Previously: 'capital' e.g. 'Capital Patient' :: 'Patient capital'.