Historian Jessica Riskin of Stanford University talks about her book The Restless Clock with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. What is the difference between human beings and machines? How has science thought about this distinction? When do we have agency and when are we constrained? Riskin discusses these issues and the implications for how we think about ourselves and the growth of artificial intelligence.

The historian Niall Ferguson summed up much of the hostile reaction: “This is what you get when you recruit your legislators more or less directly from college.” In American politics, Ocasio-Cortez is energizing a new generation of voters and is proud to call herself a democratic socialist. This label may not be controversial in European democracies but in America it's a bold move

Overlooked in a week of political news dominated by a presidential State of the Union Address and scandal-plagued Virginians: the passing of former Michigan Rep. John Dingell.

Nineteenth century historian Thomas Carlyle called economics “the dismal science” because of its predictions about scarcity and poverty. Those are immutable features of all societies, which explains why his snarky term remains widely used.