Are some applications of AI repugnant?

Here's a new HBS working paper on repugnance of A.I.

 Performance or Principle: Resistance to Artificial Intelligence in the U.S. Labor Market
By: Simon Friis and James W. Riley

Abstract
From genetically modified foods to autonomous vehicles, society often resists otherwise beneficial technologies. Resistance can arise from performance-based concerns, which fade as technology improves, or from principle-based objections, which persist regardless of capability. Using a large-scale U.S. survey quota-matched to census demographics and assessing 940 occupations (N = 23,570 occupation ratings), we disentangle these sources in the context of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite cultural anxiety about artificial intelligence displacing human workers, we find that Americans show surprising willingness to cede most occupations to machines. Given current AI capabilities, the public already supports automating 30% of occupations. When AI is described as outperforming humans at lower cost, support for automation nearly doubles to 58% of occupations. Yet a narrow subset (12%)—including caregiving, therapy, and spiritual leadership—remains categorically off-limits because such automation is seen as morally repugnant. This shift reveals that for most occupations, resistance to AI is rooted in performance concerns that fade as AI capabilities improve, rather than principled objections about what work must remain human. Occupations facing public resistance to the use of AI tend to provide higher wages and disproportionately employ White and female workers. Thus, public resistance to AI risks reinforcing economic and racial inequality even as it partially mitigates gender inequality. These findings clarify the “moral economy of work,” in which society shields certain roles not due to technical limits but to enduring beliefs about dignity, care, and meaning. By distinguishing performance- from principle-based objections, we provide a framework for anticipating and navigating resistance to technology adoption across domains. 

 

 

When AI use is morally repugnant

Researchers used a moral repugnance scale (1-7) to measure public resistance to automation across 940 occupations. They found widespread support for AI in some roles but others remain categorically off-limits, regardless of AI’s capabilities.

Occupation	Repugnance score
Clergy	5.91
Childcare workers	5.86
Marriage and family therapists	5.64
Administrative law judges, adjudicators, and hearing officers	5.62
Athletes and sports competitors	5.52
Biostatisticians	2.54
Switchboard operators, including answering service	2.52
Transportation planners	2.38
Search marketing strategists	2.31
File clerks	2.17

 

Moral Economics: back-cover blurbs

 I now know what blurbs will likely be on the back cover of Moral Economics when it comes out in May. They are by Peter Singer, Abhijit Banerjee & Esther Duflo, Claudia Goldin, and Paul Milgrom & Bob Wilson, all people whose work I admire more than I can say.

    “Alvin Roth received the Nobel Prize for work in economics that has saved thousands of lives. In Moral Economics, Roth applies his open-minded, evidence-based thinking to controversial issues at the intersection of markets and morals, where his way of thinking could save even more lives.”
    Peter Singer, author of Ethics in the Real World

    “A surprising large part of economics is about things money can't buy, for many good and bad and complicated reasons. This wonderful book by the leading scholar in that area of economics is something else that just money could never buy. It's a labor of love, a testament from a lifetime of thought and research.”
    Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, Nobel laureates and authors of Poor Economics

    “With clarity and compassion, Al Roth explores the transactions society cannot escape—surrogacy, the purchase of body parts, the sale of sex, and a host of ‘repugnant’ relationships. What should be regulated? What should be banned? What are the limits of using price in the marketplace? Be prepared to think in new ways and gain from the insights of a great market designer.”
    Claudia Goldin, Nobel laureate and author of Career and Family

    “From the right to sell a kidney to the cost of a surrogate birth, our sense of ‘right and wrong’ shapes the economy more than we realize. Nobel laureate Alvin Roth—the world's leading ‘philosopher-economist’—unpacks the hidden moral codes that govern our most intimate transactions. This is a clear-eyed guide to understanding where the market ends, where morality begins, and how we can design a world that honors both.”
    Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson, Nobel laureates, Stanford University
 

Ken Rogoff's intellectual autobiography

 My Harvard colleague Ken Rogoff, who is almost certainly undominated in the joint space of competitive chess and academic economics, reflects on the economy during his long career in a new book.

Kenneth Rogoff, Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider’s View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead. Yale 2025 

It is reviewed on the website of the Institute for New Economic Thinking --

 Education of a Grandmaster  By Perry G. Mehrling  

 I was struck by these paragraphs comparing competitive chess to academic economics.

"As a sometime intellectual biographer myself, I note the repeated chess analogies sprinkled throughout the book, and take them more seriously than Rogoff himself does. Indeed I would suggest that his early chess career, starting in high school, is the important intellectual formation we need to have in mind as the lens for understanding the moves in his second career as an economist. I have already mentioned his self-proclaimed penchant for bucking consensus. In chess everyone knows the standard openings, so to win you need to come up with a new move (on offense) or find a way to defend against your opponent’s new move (on defense). If it works, everyone studies the game and adds it to their own chess repertoire.

"That’s apparently how he understands the academic game as well, albeit perhaps subconsciously, and he was good at playing that game as well. Tenure at Harvard is basically the academic equivalent of international grandmaster status in chess, a status he achieved in 1978 just as he was starting his academic career. In chess, tournaments are where you test your skills against your rivals. In academia, conferences and workshops play an analogous role, and we know who won by subsequent publication placement. (Not nearly as objective as checkmate!) Throughout the book, we hear repeatedly about some of these academic rivalries—versus Stiglitz, Greenspan, Dooley et al, Rey, Summers, Krugman—with brief summaries of the moves that Rogoff made in crucial games. Games with lower ranked players are relegated to footnotes..." 

Kidney exchange comes to Hungary

Péter Biró  writes with good news about kidney exchange in Hungary.

 Here's the announcement from the  University of Pécs, of the first kidney exchange performed in Hungary, following the first legislation passed to legalize kidney exchange in 2014. (And more details follow from a second announcement below.)

The first cross-donation kidney transplant was performed in Hungary at the University of Pécs Clinical Center  2026.01.29

"The first cross-donation kidney transplant performed in Hungary a few days ago can be considered a new milestone in the history of organ transplantation in Hungary. Within the framework of the living donor kidney exchange program, two women received new kidneys at the Department of Surgery of the University of Pécs Clinical Center (PTE KK), which gives them the opportunity for a better quality of life. It is particularly interesting that in both cases the organ donor was a male member of the other couple.

...

"In his speech, Dr. Péter Szakály, Head of Department of the Department of Surgery of the University of Pécs, emphasized that: The establishment of a national pool was of fundamental importance in this program, and this program will be able to operate successfully in the future as well if there are as many such couples as possible. He also added that compared to traditional kidney transplantation, living donor transplantation is always a much greater challenge (...) Transplantation with a living donor comes with increased responsibility, as it involves a healthy donor. In this case, two surgeries were performed at the same time: Ádám Varga, assistant professor, and I simultaneously removed and replaced the organs between the two pairs from the adjacent operating room. 

"Since 2014, the law allows this type of transplant, but no specific surgeries have been performed so far. Recognizing this shortcoming, at the initiative of the National Hospital Administration, the four kidney transplant centers in Hungary and the Regional Kidney Transplant Committees operating there, in cooperation with the National Blood Transfusion Service, have developed a nationally uniform program in accordance with the legislation in force, which ensures equal opportunities for all patients who voluntarily enter the program. This became the living donor kidney transplant exchange program, which was launched in Hungary on June 21, 2024. The search for optimally compatible pairings between the pairs applying for the program is carried out with the help of a software developed for this purpose." 

#########

And here is the emailed announcement forwarded by Peter Biro, who has been a champion of kidney exchange in Europe for many years now:

Dear EURO-KEP Colleagues,

 

We are pleased to inform you that we have reached a significant milestone within the Hungarian Kidney Paired Kidney Exchange Program (HKEP), in line with the objectives of the EURO-KEP initiative.

 

On January 20, 2026, the first two kidney transplants were successfully performed in Hungary within the national living donor kidney exchange program. The surgeries took place at the University of Pécs Clinical Centre, marking the first realization of kidney cross-over donation in the country.

We believe that this milestone, supported by a well-structured professional and patient information campaign lasting more than a year and a half, will contribute to increasing the number of living donor kidney transplants and encourage more patients and voluntary donors to join kidney exchange programs. This, in turn, will support further kidney exchanges and improve equal access to transplantation.

 

Chronology and key developments of the Hungarian KEP

• June 2024 – With the support and authorization of the National Directorate General for Hospitals (OKFŐ), a nationally unified kidney paired exchange program was launched, coordinated by the National Blood Transfusion Service, with the participation of all four Hungarian kidney transplant centers and regional waiting list committees.
• Since the launch – The matching algorithm has been run every three months; to date, six matching runs have been completed, involving 57 donors and 44 recipients. The seventh run is scheduled for tomorrow.
• July 2025 – A key legislative amendment entered into force, allowing:
• simultaneous transplants among more than two donor–recipient pairs in a closed chain,
• transplant surgeries to be performed in different centers, enabling patients to remain at their original listing centers and
• not only incompatible pairs can join the program, but compatible pairs in the hope of better matching.
• Following the legal amendment, an updated and detailed printed patient information package was distributed nationwide, with the involvement of all dialysis units and transplant centers.
• During the optimization process, a clinically acceptable match was identified between two married couples. In both cases, the male partner donated a kidney to the female recipient of the other couple. The transplant surgeries were performed on 20 January 2026 at the Surgical Clinic of the University of Pécs Clinical Centre. In both cases, graft function started immediately. The recipients and donors are in good condition and both patients were discharged home on Friday.

We consider this achievement a significant milestone in Hungarian transplantation and a meaningful contribution to the shared European objectives of the EURO-KEP project. We remain committed to continuing this work in the service of saving lives.

 

Best regards,

 

Dr. Sándor Mihály, Ph.D  
Director of transplantation

Honorary College Associate Professor at Semmelweis University

General Secretary of the Hungarian Transplant Society

EDTCO Past-Chair 2023-2025

 

 

Organ Coordination Office

Central Waiting List Office

National Organ and Tissue Donation Opting-out Registry

Hungarian Stem Cell Donor Registry

 

Spam invitation to be featured in a book club

 As the author of a forthcoming book (Moral Economics) I now get book-related emails from publicists, podcasters and others.  But I suspect I was the first human to see the email below, inviting me to be featured in a book club, which began with this sentence:

"I’m writing because "The Nash solution and the utility of bargaining" has stayed with me, thoughtful, layered, and resonant in a way that invites real conversation. It felt like the kind of book our readers would want to spend time with."

 It purported to come from the organizer of an apparently real book club (Bellatrist), but alas the return email didn't pass the smell test (despite coming from such a perceptive reader of the paper below...)

 Roth, Alvin E. "The Nash solution and the utility of bargaining." Econometrica (1978)

 Abstract: "It has recently been shown that the utility of playing a game with side payments depends on a parameter called strategic risk posture. The Shapley value is the risk neutral utility function for games with side payments. In this paper, utility functions are derived for bargaining games without side payments, and it is shown that these functions are also determined by the strategic risk posture. The Nash solution is the risk neutral utility function for bargaining games without side payments."

 

Thoughtful, layered and resonant.