Noahpinion

Noahpinion is Noah Smith’s newsletter blog, focused primarily on economics with additional coverage of technology, geopolitics and culture. Its AI work includes a jointly authored analysis of generative AI and employment in 2022 and Smith’s guest-hosted discussion of AI-guided drones in 2026. The publication delivers its writing through email, the web and the Substack app, with free and paid subscriptions.[2][5][1]

On December 1, 2022, Noahpinion published “Generative AI: autocomplete for everything”, coauthored by Smith and roon, described in the essay as a researcher at an unnamed prominent AI company. They argued that generative AI was more likely to complement workers than replace them, while acknowledging that some people could lose out and that future AI might surpass human capabilities across tasks.[5]

Their analysis distinguished tasks from jobs. Drawing on a model by Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo, they explained that automation can improve productivity at existing tasks, shift human labor toward different tasks and create new tasks; workers’ outcomes depend on the balance. They also discussed Prediction Machines by Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans and Avi Goldfarb. Their comparative-advantage argument held that AI being better at every task would not necessarily mean it performed every task: limited computing resources could leave economically valuable work for humans.[5]

Smith and roon called their proposed collaboration pattern the “sandwich” workflow: a human supplies an idea and prompt, AI generates options, and the human selects, edits and finishes the result. They illustrated it with contemporary GitHub Copilot and Midjourney workflows. A programmer could ask for code to turn a dataset into a scatter plot, then correct errors; an artist could select an image and repair details such as hands. Smith also imagined turning his own bullet points into AI-generated paragraphs before editing them—a prospective workflow, rather than an account of an adopted practice.[5]

In his November 2024 retrospective, Smith continued to question predictions of widespread AI-driven job loss. He argued that electricity and specialized-chip constraints could preserve humans’ economic value, and suggested that AI might outperform people at some tasks while remaining weaker at others, such as distinguishing truth from fiction.[6]

In the Latent Space episode published May 18, 2026, Smith guest-hosted alongside Brandon Anderson, interviewing The Fourth Law founder Yaroslav Azhnyuk about AI-guided drone technology and economics. Smith questioned how computer-vision systems would handle distribution shifts, including fog that could lead to targeting errors. He distinguished terminal image recognition and tracking from more complex autonomous decisions with long-tail edge cases. The drone products and autonomy taxonomy discussed were Azhnyuk’s work.[1]

Before these AI contributions, Noahpinion developed from an economics blog into a subscription publication. Its 2020 relaunch established room for longer articles, technical economic discussion and subjects beyond Smith’s professional opinion columns.[4]

Smith’s 2024 retrospective dates Noahpinion’s Blogger beginning to 2011. His launch account describes writing through graduate school, his years as an assistant professor and, intermittently, his subsequent work at Bloomberg Opinion. On November 24, 2020, the old archive announced the move to Substack. His later retrospective places the switch on November 23; both the migration announcement and the Substack welcome post are dated November 24.[6][4][3]

At the Substack launch, Smith said the blog would replace much of his Twitter commentary, giving him space for nuance beyond a 280-character format. He initially retained his Bloomberg Opinion job. The subscription blog offered longer writing beyond an 800-word column, multimedia, technical discussions of economic research, book reviews and broader commentary. Some posts would remain free; his plan was eventually to make most subscriber-only.[4]

Smith left Bloomberg in late 2021 to blog full time. On Noahpinion’s About page, he credits paid subscribers with making the publication a full-time job rather than a hobby.[2]

On November 24, 2024, Smith reported over 280,000 readers and 14,500 paid subscribers. These were distinct readership and paid-subscription figures for that date.[6]